Morgellons Disease

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Many times embarrassing videos or stories are posted by friends or family who wish to share what they find funny or intriguing, but sometimes they do it without informing the subject of the video or story. This was the case for Ghyslain Raza. He took a video of himself uncoordinatedly swinging around a pole like a jedi. His friends later posted this video without Raza’s knowledge and the video went viral. Millions of people have watched it and know Raza only as the “star wars kid.” Seife uses the “star wars kid” as an example of how easily information can be passed along with the help of the internet. He states that “[t]he mob is always there, listening, waiting to hear something interesting” (228). The millions of people on the internet are…show more content…
Symptoms for this disease include an under-skin crawling or biting feeling, rashes and sores, or even fibers coming out of the sores themselves (228). Its name was coined by Mary Leitao when her son contracted the disease. Leitao also started a foundation to raise awareness and a website for that foundation. Many other people with similar symptoms quickly found the site and the foundation gained popularity. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) eventually gave in after hundreds of reports of Morgellons and investigated this mysterious disease. The CDC determined that the disease did not truly exist and was a subset of “delusional parasitosis”- the feeling of bugs crawling under your skin when there is nothing there. Morgellons is classified as an internet disease by Seife because it does not exist and would have likely died out naturally as a fringe idea if the internet had not been around. Seife states that “the internet is amplifying our quirks and our odd ideas. Bit by bit driving us toward extremism” (230). Anyone can type in their symptoms and be led to the Morgellons foundation’s website. People are far more likely to believe an idea if there are enough other people who believe the same thing, regardless of the facts and research done on the subject of debate. Without those internet connections, many people would dismiss their alleged disease and move on with their lives. The internet allow for people to connect no matter how strange or weird the idea is and strengthen their own

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