Kritters - Letter Writing Campaign

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I am writing to inform you of an emerging health problem and to ask for your assistance.

Over the past several decades and more recently since 1995-1996, increasing numbers of people across the globe have become afflicted with an unknown disease that has been named "Elliot's Disease." While this is becoming a global disease, it appears to now be concentrated across the United States with elevated incidence in several "sunbelt" states (California, Arizona, Texas and Florida), although certainly not limited to these four states, and becoming more prevalent throughout the United States and the globe.

Many health authorities, including the CDC, personal doctors, state epidemiologists and others with credentials that ought to allow their expertise to shed some light on this disease have been contacted and asked to assist. The National Pediculosis Association in Newton, Massachusetts has spent countless hours and dollars collecting reports and researching this disease. All 50 United States are represented in the epidemiology statistics that the NPA is maintaining.

The most imposing problem facing those with this disease is lack of a diagnosis, or a misdiagnosis at best. No suitable course of treatment can be found without a definitive diagnosis. In many cases medical doctors are performing perfunctory examinations (standing five feet or more away from the patient) without determining the cause of the suffering and then prescribing medications (often those used for lice or scabies) that are not resolving the illness and not allowing the patient to heal. In the worst of cases, the patients are made to feel mentally ill and diagnosed as delusional parasitosis victims. The disease referred to as Elliot's Disease and delusional parasitosis share a great deal in common, in terms of symptoms and artifacts. However there cannot be such a widespread folie-a-deux to account for the thousands of individuals who are ill now and those innumerable who may become ill in the future.

In 1934, an entomologist named Jay Traver became ill and later received a diagnosis of delusional parasitosis. She proceeded to try to find the cause of her suffering, eventually publishing a paper in 1951 in the Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington outlining a particular mite infesting her skin. This is not to suggest that this particular mite is the causative agent of Elliot's Disease, just a reminder that diagnoses can be initially incorrect yet amended as more information is available and more research is conducted. Yet, Elliot's Disease is not yet medically acknowledged and therefore strenuous and concerted efforts are not being made to identify the pathogens and provide relief to sufferers.

In 1995, a woman from Shanghai, China sharing several symptoms of Elliot's Disease was able to determine two foreign bodies in the bloodstream through dark-field microscopy at a resolution of 10,000X; one appears to be a helminth and the other appears to be a light reflective pathogen. Through the assistance of Prof. Chang Zhengshan at the Shanghai Parasite Research Institute, these pathogens were found in at least 10 Shanghai patients and not found in a control group. It may be that if those suffering from Elliot's Disease can duplicate these findings, the pathogens may be more readily identified.

Multiple message boards have cropped up on the Internet offering support to those suffering from this illness. Many individuals are self-medicating, with veterinary drugs, drugs obtained from other countries, or worse, with pesticides or other dangerous chemicals. The desperation is overwhelming and particularly tragic since there is a feeling among those suffering that the illness may be contagious. Normal life is brought to a complete halt while the sufferer attempts to determine what is causing their illness. Marriages, children, careers, financial stability and personal possessions are threatened and in some cases lost altogether.

Symptoms of this disease include any and all of the following located anywhere on the body, often including the scalp, face, ears, eyes, mouth and nose:

Skin rashes, lesions and sores; track marks, burrows and papules on the skin; sensation of stinging, biting, and burning on the skin; sensation of movement on or under the skin; pruritis; granules, glitter-like or iridescent particles, black specks in lesions or on the skin; fibers and fiber balls of various colors in lesions or on the skin; unidentified clear filaments in lesions; hair loss; muscle cramps and spasms; arthritic-like pain in bones and joints; elevated eosinophil counts; abnormal basophil, neutrophil, alkaline phosphatase, lymphocytes and monocytes counts; elevated white blood count. In some cases the infestation appears to be extended to the home environment, particularly textiles. Some sufferers have tested positive for mycoplasma fermentans (incognitus).

The most common and identifying aspects of this disease are the incidence of fibers and unidentified filaments in or on the skin.

At this time, there appears to be no public acknowledgment of this disease and no public efforts to determine the cause and the cure. You may be wondering, "How can I help?" This letter is being written to you because of your position in the government, public health arena, public advocacy arena, or media. You have the power to insist that socially responsible action be taken. You may even have the ability to take action yourself, today, and organize research or inquiries into this disease. Until this disease is acknowledged and research is underway to provide practical treatment, the sufferers will continue to suffer in silence without assistance from the medical profession who have to-date been unable to diagnose and treat this disease. This is not a problem of the United States or those who are ill around the world, but of all human kind and our posterity.

Thank you for your time and attention to this matter.

Click "submit" to send this letter, along with your name and email address, to the people listed below.

(Please note that you must have your browsers email program set up or this may not work properly. Instead of creating an email with the letter, it will just hang. Here are some ideas for setting up your browser's email if you have problems. If it doesn't work with Netscape, try Explorer. Sorry this isn't perfect guys - but it's better then nothing.)

Join the Blue Ribbon Online Free Speech Campaign!

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Office of the Secretary
Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tommy G. Thompson
200 Independence Ave., S.W. Room 615-F
Washington, DC 20201
hhsmail@os.dhhs.gov

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Office of Public Health and Science
Surgeon General, David Satcher M.D., Ph.D.
200 Independence Ave., S.W. Room 716-G
Washington DC 20201
DSatcher@OSOPHS.DHHS.GOV\

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Director, Dr. Jeffrey P. Koplan, MD MPH
4770 Buford Hwy #1208
Chamblee, GA 30341
jpk1@CDC.GOV

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
National Institutes of Health
Acting Director, Ruth Kirschstein, M.D.
9000 Rockville Pike
Bethesda, Maryland 20892
rk25n@NIH.GOV

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, NIH
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
Director, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, MD
31 Center Drive, Room 7A03
Bethesda, Maryland 20892
af10r@NIH.GOV

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, NIH
National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases
Director, Dr. Stephen I. Katz
31 Center Drive, Room 4C32D
Bethesda, Maryland 20892
sk48w@NIH.GOV

Environmental Protection Agency
Administrator, Christie Whitman
Ariel Rios Building
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20460
Public-access@epa.gov

Epidemic Intelligence Service, CDC
Dr. Nancy Rosenstein
Epidemiology Program Office MS D-18
1600 Clifton Road, NE
Atlanta, GA 30333
eisepo@cdc.gov

Medical Association
Richard F. Corlin, MD, President
515 N. State Street
Chicago, IL 60610
richard_corlin@ama-assn.org.
(This e-mail address is a guess.)

Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research
Michael B. Wood, MD, President
200 First St. NW
Rochester, MN 55905
newsbureau@mayo.edu
(Cannot find direct address.)

American Academy of Dermatology
Fred F. Castrow II, MD, President
930 N. Meacham Road
PO Box 4014
Schaumburg, IL 60168-4014
yurbikas@aad.org
Cannot find direct address

American Osteopathic Association
Anthony A. Minissale, D.O., President-elect
American Osteopathic Association
142 East Ontario Street, Chicago, IL 60611
czurek@aoa-net.org

Public Advocacy Groups:

Environmental Working Group
1718 Connecticut Ave., N.W., Suite 600
Washington, DC 20009
info@ewg.org

Center for Science in the Public Interest
1875 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Suite 300
Washington, D.C. 20009
cspi@cspinet.org

Public Citizen California Office
1615 Broadway, Ninth Floor
Oakland, California 94612
California@citizen.org

Public Citizen
Health Research Group
Sidney Wolfe, MD, Director
1600 20th St. NW
Washington, DC. 20009
hrg1@citizen.org

Media:

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Randy Herschaft - Investigative Researcher
International Headquarters
50 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, N.Y. 10020
randy_herschaft@ap.org

United Press International, Inc.
John O'Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief
1510 H St NW
Washington, DC 20005
Tips@upi.com

CNN News Group
Philip I. Kent, President & COO
1 CNN Center NW
Atlanta, Georgia 30303

ABC News
World News Tonight with Peter Jennings
47 West 66^th St. #800
New York, NY 10023
PeterJennings@abcnews.com

NBC News
Nightly News with Tom Brokaw
30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10112
Nightly@nbc.com

NBC News
HealthBeat, Robert Bazell
30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10112
RobertBazell@nbc.com

CBS News
CBS Evening News with Dan Rather
524 W. 57th St.
NY, NY 10019
Danrather@cbs.com

You may wish to send, via regular mail, the letter to these people also:

SENATORS, CONGRESSMEN

STATE HEALTH COMMISSIONERS

STATE EPIDEMIOLOGISTS

The above individuals need to be looked up by the person sending the mail.

Some good places to look for these names and addresses are:

http://www.astho.org/state.html

http://www.piperinfo.com

Join the Blue Ribbon Online Free Speech Campaign!

Setting up your browsers email program:

Internet Explorer Instructions

1.Open Internet Explorer.
2.Choose Internet Options in the View menu.
3.Go to the Programs tab.
4.Select a program under the mail drop down menu. If you don't have any options you will have to download an e-mail program. Outlook Express interfaces with Internet Explorer well.
5.Once you have selected a program you will have to configure it to send outgoing mail. If your server does not work with external programs then just enter your e-mail address and use mail as your server. The program might ask for a user name if it does then just use whatever username you have for your e-mail account.

Netscape 4.0+ Instruction

1.Open Netscape.
2.Choose Preferences from the Edit menu.
3.Click on the box next to Mail and Newsgroups in the list.
4.Select Identity.
5.Enter your e-mail information into the fields.
6.Select the Mail Servers.
7.Enter your e-mail server information. If your e-mail service is not compatible with external e-mail programs then use mail as your server.

Netscape 3.0- Instructions

1.Open Netscape.
2.Choose Mail and News Preferences under the options menu.
3.Choose the Identity tab.
4.Enter your e-mail information into the fields.
5.Select the Servers tab.
6.Enter your e-mail server information. If your e-mail server is not compatible with external e-mail programs then use mail for your server.