Let me add a pearl to that necklace (TL;DR: Morgellons disease is linked to Lyme disease):
> Exploring the association between Morgellons disease and Lyme disease: identification of Borrelia burgdorferi in Morgellons disease patients
> Morgellons disease (MD) is a complex skin disorder characterized by ulcerating lesions that have protruding or embedded filaments. Many clinicians refer to this condition as delusional parasitosis or delusional infestation and consider the filaments to be introduced textile fibers. In contrast, recent studies indicate that MD is a true somatic illness associated with tickborne infection, that the filaments are keratin and collagen in composition and that they result from proliferation and activation of keratinocytes and fibroblasts in the skin. Previously, spirochetes have been detected in the dermatological specimens from four MD patients, thus providing evidence of an infectious process.
Allow me to place the necklace around your neck now:
> Grossman added Kris Newby, an "excellent science writer connected to Stanford University," wrote a book in 2019 featuring interviews with Willy Burgdorfer, who is credited with the discovery of the microbe causing Lyme disease, and the book exposed that Burgdorfer had earlier "developed bioweapons for the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD)."
> As a science writer, she was driven to understand why this disease is so misunderstood, and its patients so mistreated. This quest led her to Willy Burgdorfer, the Lyme microbe’s discoverer, who revealed that he had developed bug-borne bioweapons during the Cold War, and believed that the Lyme epidemic was started by a military experiment gone wrong.
This paper several authors with professional backgrounds that should make people skeptical.
* Three authors are from Australian Biologics. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has in the past "instituted proceedings in the Federal Court, Sydney, against Australian Biologics Testing Services Pty Ltd and its director, Ms Janette Burke [third author on this paper!], alleging that representations made in brochures and on Australian Biologics’ website in 2001 and part of 2002 were false, misleading, and deceptive" [1].
* Another author is Peter Mayne. In 2017 the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission prosecuted a complaint against him for "unsatisfactory professional conduct" because he "inappropriately diagnosing [a] patient with Lyme disease" and then, among other things, "[i]nappropriately treated the patient with weekly and then biweekly antibiotic injections for Lyme disease over approximately 30 weeks but failed to investigate or consider the patient might have cancer due to his age and medical history" and finally ordered him "[n]ot to advice [sic], diagnose or treat patients who he believes to have or may have Lyme disease or similar tick-borne disease" [2]
* Another author is Raphael B. Stricker, who the NIH found guilty of scientific misconduct in 1993 [3]
It is a red flag if a scientific field is this dense with people who have been found guilty of this kind of misconduct. Maybe being persecuted by an authority just adds fuel to the conspiracy, but I'm going to leave it at this: this strand of the chronic Lyme cottage industry (and maybe the industry in general) appears to be populated by people who either believe they themselves have chronic Lyme disease, or believe that they can make money off people who do. What it does not seem to have is disinterested third parties who are working on it because it's a meaningful research problem. This is a red flag, too: it suggests that there is something repelling people with reputations to lose, and I think it is the quality of research produced by its adherents.
Look, I believe these people are suffering, and suffering is bad, so I hope they get help, but I am very skeptical that the people claiming to offer help are the right people to do so.
Fine, one more thing. Willie Burgdorfer died in 2014, five years before Newby's book came out. He was 89 and died of complications from Parkinson's disease. The numbers for Parkinson's disease, dementia, and old age may, depending on the dates when Newby talked to him, make his testimony somewhat less than ironclad.
> Exploring the association between Morgellons disease and Lyme disease: identification of Borrelia burgdorferi in Morgellons disease patients
> Morgellons disease (MD) is a complex skin disorder characterized by ulcerating lesions that have protruding or embedded filaments. Many clinicians refer to this condition as delusional parasitosis or delusional infestation and consider the filaments to be introduced textile fibers. In contrast, recent studies indicate that MD is a true somatic illness associated with tickborne infection, that the filaments are keratin and collagen in composition and that they result from proliferation and activation of keratinocytes and fibroblasts in the skin. Previously, spirochetes have been detected in the dermatological specimens from four MD patients, thus providing evidence of an infectious process.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5072536/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25879673/
Allow me to place the necklace around your neck now:
> Grossman added Kris Newby, an "excellent science writer connected to Stanford University," wrote a book in 2019 featuring interviews with Willy Burgdorfer, who is credited with the discovery of the microbe causing Lyme disease, and the book exposed that Burgdorfer had earlier "developed bioweapons for the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD)."
http://www.news.cn/english/2021-08/25/c_1310146419.htm
The book: https://www.amazon.com/Bitten-History-Disease-Biological-Wea...
> As a science writer, she was driven to understand why this disease is so misunderstood, and its patients so mistreated. This quest led her to Willy Burgdorfer, the Lyme microbe’s discoverer, who revealed that he had developed bug-borne bioweapons during the Cold War, and believed that the Lyme epidemic was started by a military experiment gone wrong.