CDC to Investigate Mystery Disease

The Atlanta-based U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention plans a study to determine if Morgellons disease actually exists.

The symptoms include lesions and mysterious fibers under or popping out of the skin. Reports of the condition in the United States are most common in California, Florida and Texas, but the disease has been reported from all over the country and in many foreign countries as well, the Chicago Tribune said.

Some doctors believe that people with Morgellons suffer from a form of hysteria with the Internet helping to recruit new victims. But others are equally convinced that it is a disease, although the cause is unknown.

Dr. Randy Wymore of Oklahoma State University told KENS TV in San Antonio that he has examined fibers from hundreds of patients and determined that they are similar to each other — and unlike fibers found in cloth. Doctors at OSU also say that they have observed fibers under unbroken skin, where patients could not have rubbed them in.