Fred Heldrich, a Johns Hopkins pediatrician with a reputation "for solving mystery cases", examined Leitao's son. She states that she took her son to see at least eight different doctors who were unable to find any disease, allergy, or anything unusual about her son's described symptoms. Leitao says she examined the sores with her son's toy microscope and discovered red, blue, black, and white fibers. In 2001, according to Leitao, her then-two-year-old son developed sores under his lip and began to complain of bugs. Society and culture Mary Leitao and the MRF Controversy has resulted publications "largely from a single group of investigators" describe findings of spirochetes, keratin and collagen in skin samples in small numbers of patients these findings are contradicted by much larger studies conducted by the CDC, which found skin samples mostly contained cellulose that came from cotton, with no evidence of infection or other causes. An active online community supports the notion that it is an infectious disease, disputes that it is psychological, and proposes an association with Lyme disease. Its presentation is very similar to delusional parasitosis, with the addition that people with the condition believe there are inanimate objects in their skin lesions. Morgellons is poorly understood but the general medical consensus is that it is a form of delusional parasitosis in which individuals have some form of skin condition with sores that they believe contain fibers. The researchers concluded that the condition was "similar to more commonly recognized conditions such as delusional infestation". CDC researchers issued the results of their multi-year study in January 2012, indicating that no disease organisms were present in the samples from the individuals examined and that the fibers found were likely cotton. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to investigate the condition in 2006. Leitao and others involved in her Morgellons Research Foundation successfully lobbied members of the U.S. She chose the name from a letter written by a mid-17th-century physician.
The condition was named in 2002 by Mary Leitao, a mother who rejected the medical diagnosis of her son's delusional parasitosis. The sores are typically the result of compulsive scratching, and the fibers, when analysed, are consistently found to have originated from cotton and other textiles. Morgellons is not well understood, but the general medical consensus is that it is a form of delusional parasitosis, on the psychiatric spectrum. Morgellons ( / m ɔːr ˈ ɡ ɛ l ə n z/) is the informal name of a self-diagnosed, scientifically unsubstantiated skin condition in which individuals have sores that they believe contain fibrous material.