Aftermath News

Josef Fritzl: I did it for her own good

Telegraph | May 9, 2008

Josef Fritzl blames Nazis for crimes

By Andreas Sam in Vienna

Josef Fritzl, the Austrian father who kept his daughter locked in a dungeon for 24 years, has for the first time described in detail what motivated him to commit such horrific crimes and how he managed to keep them secret.

His explanations, which included bizarre claims that Nazis were responsible for fostering his twisted morality, were detailed by his lawyer after Fritzl wrote notes from his prison cell.

The 73-year-old said Hitler’s Germany had instilled “control and the respect of authority” in him, pushing him to imprisoning his daughter Elisabeth under his family home in Amstetten, west of Vienna, and fathering her seven children.

Blaming the Nazis for his attitudes, Fritzl wrote: “I have always had high regard for decency and uprightness. I was growing up in Nazi times, when hard discipline was a very important thing. I belong to an old school of thinking that just does not exist today.

“I grew up in the Nazi times and that meant there needed to be control and the respect of authority. I suppose I took on some of these old values with me into later life, all subconsciously, of course.”

Fritzl claimed that he had kidnapped the teenage Elisabeth to keep her away from alcohol and bad company. He also said he had “rescued” Elisabeth, who was then 18, to keep her from “going out to seedy bars” and “drinking and smoking.”

FULL STORY

Blacklisted News | Apr 25, 2008

Barbara Blair says this new gel she’s been using makes her face look a lot younger than the Retin-A and vitamin C creams she’s been using.

What Blair probably doesn’t know is that a key ingredient in the cream is the foreskin of a circumcised baby.

The skin that would otherwise be tossed away. It was first made into a product that helped burn victims heal. Now it’s in this antiwrinkle gel, called TNS Recovery Complex.

Betsy Rubenstone is the aesthetician in the plastic surgery department at the University of Pennsylvania and she swears by this stuff.

She knows why the foreskin is used.

“It’s filled with everything we begin to lose as we age,” Rubenstone says. “And that includes growth factors, amino acids, proteins, collage, elastin and holyuronic acid.”

Thomas Jefferson University Hospital dermatologist Paul Bujanauskas says while TNS might have merit, he would not prescribe it for his patients because no scientific research proving its value has been published in medical journals.

The cost of one bottle of TNS is about $130. And that will last you about a month and a half. How does it smell? Well that’s another downside. Just ask anybody who uses it.

“It’s disgusting. It’s got a sour smell to it that makes you want to gag,” says Blair. “But you get used to it.”

. . .

Related (spoof)

Oprah Winfrey’s Foreskin Face Cream

. . .

Fox | Apr 24, 2008

The prizewinning artist Gregor Schneider, enfant terrible of the German cultural scene, is looking for a volunteer who is willing to die for his — that is, Schneider’s — art.

He wants someone whose dying hours will be spent in an art gallery with the public admiring the way the light plays on the flesh of a person gasping for the last breath.

Politicians and curators are in a state of uproar about Schneider’s plans. The 39-year-old artist has been concerned with death for much of his career. He gained critical acclaim for a sculpture, “Hannelore Reuen,” of a dead woman. He has been hatching his current idea since 1996, and now has a sympathetic pathologist and art collector to help to find a candidate who wants to become a work of art in the final days of his or her life.

“The dying person would determine everything in advance, he would be the absolute center of attention,” Schneider said. “Everything will be done in consultation with the relatives, and the public will watch the death in an appropriately private atmosphere.”

Death is commonly seen as the last taboo, but artists have been trying hard to demystify it. Gunther von Hagens, nicknamed Doctor Death, has been traveling the world with an exhibition of plastinated corpses, showing genuine human bodies in living poses, playing chess or on horseback. The Wellcome Collection in London has an exhibition of portraits of people pictured before and after death by two German photographers.

The Schneider project, however, seems to have gone too far. It is being compared with watching executions in the United States. The influential gallery owner Beatrix Kalwa spoke for many German curators who rule out the idea of giving space to Schneider’s artistic endeavor.

“Existential matters like death, birth or the act of reproduction do not belong in a museum,” she said. “There is a fundamental difference between portraying these acts in an art form, and showing them in actuality.”

The head of the German hospice foundation that provides care for the terminally ill, Eugen Brysch, said: “This is pure voyeurism and makes a mockery of those who are dying.” But Schneider, who feigned his own death as part of an exhibition in Germany in 2000, argues that death is already undignified and that his aim is to restore its grace.

The actor mersmerised the guests at the historic Jesuits Church.

Benigni smiled, as he started answering Maltese journalists’ questions. He then explained a medieval-style fantastical plan to march into Italy with an international army, to ‘re-conquer’ the country from Berlusconi’s rule. His ‘plan’ included gathering Maltese Knights, and historic warriors from other European cultures, and to ask Maltese Prime Minister Dr Gonzi for weapons and money. Ironically, both the Maltese President and the Prime Minister stand on the same side of the political spectrum as Berlusconi!

Save me from Berlusconi, Benigni asks Fenech Adami

Malta Star | Apr 22, 2008

In a packed church in Valletta, an Italian man kneeled before Maltese President Dr Edward Fenech Adami, begging him to help him as he does not want to return to Italy under the new Prime Minister Berlusconi.

Had the man not been Roberto Benigni, the Italian Oscar-winning director and actor, such a move would have sparked a major diplomatic incident. But for the Italian legendary artist of ‘La Vita e’ Bella’ fame, every word becomes a work of art. The actor mersmerised the guests at the historic Jesuits Church, as he delivered his acceptance speech on receiving an honoris causa doctorate degree from the University of Malta.

Benigni, who soared to international fame with his cinematic masterpiece ‘La Vita e’ Bella’ (1997), is in Malta on a three day visit, and will be delighting Malta with a ‘Serata Dantesca’, a public recital of Dante Alighieri’s Divina Commedia, on Wednesday at 1830hrs on campus. Inside the university theatre, only students and the university’s academic staff will be allowed, but outside the hall, at the university’s main quadrangle, the public will be able to follow Benigni’s performance through a live transmission on a maxi screen.

On Wednesday, Benigni will be sharing the stage with Professor Robert Hollander, who published over 12 books on Dante. The Professor was also entrusted with a new translation of Paradiso, published in 2007.

A plan to re-conquer Italy!

Earlier in the day, Benigni thrilled Maltese journalists with a breathtaking press conference, describing Malta as a “vecchia appena nata” and letting loose his imagination describing a fantastical plot on how to gather an army to re-conquer Italy.

Last week’s general elections are still fresh in Benigni’s mind. In the run up to the polls he openly supported the Partito Democratico (PD) of Walter Veltroni, the main contender of the newly elected Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. “I am not here to seek political asylum,” Benigni smiled, as he started answering Maltese journalists’ questions. He then explained a medieval-style fantastical plan to march into Italy with an international army, to ‘re-conquer’ the country from Berlusconi’s rule. His ‘plan’ included gathering Maltese knights, and historic warriors from other European cultures, and to ask Maltese Prime Minister Dr Gonzi for weapons and money.

Ironically, both the Maltese President and the Prime Minister stand on the same side of the political spectrum as Berlusconi!
“Vecchia appena nata”

Malta is like “una vecchia appena nata” [an old newborn], said Benigni, hailing the country’s rich history intertwined with its vibrant culture. This is his first time on the island, but he was impressed, he told journalists. “When I was told I will be receiving a degree from Malta, I was so happy I jumped on the table and did cartwheels on the lawn.” He even toyed with the possibility of using Malta for one of his films. “I am currently looking for a story for my next film… maybe it will include Malta.”

When a journalist asked him if he ever has moments of sadness and tears, he smiled, asked her name, and wittily commented, “What a beautiful name, it almost brings tears to my eyes.” He admitted that many comedians are said to have a very melancholic private life. He recalled an actor telling him he dreaded going to dinner with Charles Chaplain as he was so sad! “I tried to be sad in order to be like the great comedians, but I never managed,” he quipped.

He described life as a journey of constant change, where everyone follows a path, a dream, “and the desire to desire life.”

Dante is ahead of us…

In recent months, Benigni’s popularity in Italy escalated with the television programme ‘Tutto Dante’ on RAI, the Italian national broadcaster. The programmes reached unexpected popularity levels, with viewership exceeding 12 million. The climax of the events is when Benigni superbly recites whole ‘cantos’ of Dante’s Divina Commedia by heart.

Commenting on this achievement, Benigni refused to admit that he is doing any effort to spread literature among the people. “I do not want to acculturate the people. I go before the people to do what I love doing, just like a child who discovers something beautiful and wants to tell everyone about it. Wherever I went, I went to learn more on Dante’s words from those I meet. I keep learning everyday.”

“The love for Dante’s works is like a fire that keeps me warm… we do not have to look back to understand Dante’s works… he is ahead of us… the first and greatest modern poets… a visionary… when you read Dante you get the urge to make love to the book.” Benigni explains that Dante’s ‘La Commedia’ is like an encyclopedia, almost like the Internet, as it deals with everything, with every aspect of life.”

Asked on the possibility of making a film out of the Divina Commedia, Benigni said it is almost impossible. Even Federico Fellini wished to do a film on Dante’s work, Benigni said as he recalled his friendship with the renowned film director. But they both agreed that the Commedia is perfect in its own right, and when a creation is perfect it is difficult to successfully translate it into another medium. “It is like trying to speak in rhyme.”

Benigni has been studying the Divina Commedia, and its interpretation, for years. His first recital was in 1990 at the University of Siena. During the last years he started the recitals in Italian squares, reviving the forgotten Tuscan tradition of reciting literature by heart in public. Even illiterate farmers used to perform some of the Commedia’s ‘canti’.

But Benigni goes a step further. Before the recitals, he starts off with commentaries linking Dante’s works to contemporary themes. “He managed to give the Commedia modern relevance, and he did it in an extraordinary way,” explained Professor Dominic Fenech, Dean of the Faculty of Arts, and Dr Gloria Lauri Lucente, the Deputy Dean of the same faculty, when announcing Benigni’s visit to Malta, a few weeks ago. Dr Lauri Lucente and Professor Fenech organised Benigni’s visit to Malta on behalf of the university’s Faculty of Arts.

Death: art’s final taboo

While artists have always explored aspects of mortality, there has been a recent surge in exhibitions – from starving dogs to photographs of terminally ill people – that dare to examine the subject as never before. Andrew Johnson reports

Independent | Apr 20, 2008

It was, perhaps, only a matter of time before contemporary art’s obsession with death led to its natural conclusion: an exhibit featuring the act of dying.

The German artist Gregor Schneider is looking for volunteers who are willing to die in an art gallery for his latest work, according to the Art Newspaper. And in Nicaragua, a Costa Rican artist has created a storm of hostility by apparently tying up a dog in a gallery and leaving it to starve to death as a work of art. Schneider, who is known for his macabre sculptures of dark, foreboding houses and bodies lying prone with plastic bags on their heads, and who has represented Germany at the Venice Biennale, said: “I want to display a person dying naturally in the piece or somebody who has just died. My aim is to show the beauty of death. I am confident we will find people to take part.”

The modern public’s appetite for real death can be seen in the runaway success of Günther von Hagens’s Body World’s exhibition – in which real cadavers are preserved in varying states of dissection and which has been seen by 25 million people globally. It is currently showing in Manchester where it has already pulled in 100,000 visitors since February.

At the Wellcome Collection in London there is currently a moving display of portraits of ordinary people pictured before and after death by the German photographers Walter Schels and Beate Lakotta.

Meanwhile, animal rights activists have been in uproar over the fate of Natividad, a street dog captured by the artist Guillermo Vargas, otherwise known as Habacuc. Natividad was allegedly tied to a piece of string in a Nicaraguan gallery without food or water and left to starve to death late last year in a work called Eres lo que lees (You are what you read). The artist said the work was a comment on the thousands of street dogs that starve to death in Central America each year, but the US animal rights group the Humane Society said, as far as it could establish, the animal was fed and watered, and displayed for just three hours before it escaped.

Artists’ interest in mortality can be seen in work from Hans Holbein’s 16th-century The Ambassadors, in which a skewed skull comments on the vanity of the sitters, to Damien Hirst’s recent diamond encrusted skull.

The art critic Brian Sewell said: “Schneider’s idea is part of a new examination of death, following on from Günther von Hagens, which has popularised the macabre and bizarre. There is no doubt that the photographs at the Wellcome are based on sculpture, however. People say that death is the last taboo, and we talk about it in euphemism. It has very long roots in art, but is not as celebrated as the examination of beauty or youth.”

And writing this week about Schneider’s planned art work, Sewell wrote: “Can such a disquieting thing be art? Should it, indeed, be done in a civilised society? Perhaps so.”

A drawing captures the grandeur of Moscow’s monolithic Federal Military Memorial Cemetery, Vladimir Putin’s corpse will be transported to the cemetery’s pantheon in an armoured personnel carrier

Telegraph | Mar 24, 2008

By Adrian Blomfield in Moscow

Vladimir Putin is to fulfil an unrealised dream of Joseph Stalin’s by creating a grandiose state cemetery.

In a corner of northern Moscow bulldozers began churning the earth his week in a section of wasteland where Mr Putin and Stalin, the dictator he is said to revere, could one day be laid side by side.

The Federal Military Memorial Cemetery, its designers boast, will be Russia’s answer to America’s Arlington. Arguably the most ambitious architectural project undertaken since the fall of the Soviet Union, it remains to be seen whether the cemetery, due to be completed by 2010, will become the landmark the Kremlin hopes.

There is no doubt that the project encapsulates the Putin era, which officially ends on May 7, though the president is likely to remain Russia’s most powerful man in his new job as prime minister.

The cemetery will be a testament to extravagance, a piece of architectural monumentalism intended to reflect the glory of a resurgent Russia. For the critics, it is also a worrying sign of the Kremlin’s flirtation with its Communist past. The design marks a return to the style many assumed had gone with the end of the Soviet Union.

Drawings show that the 132 acre site will feature obelisks, golden statues of figures from Russia’s past and friezes of workers in heroic poses.

It is architecture from the era of heroic realism and a style of propaganda favoured by both Stalin and Hitler - a fact that has dismayed a dwindling number of liberal architects fighting the current trend of Soviet nostalgia.

The concept of a national cemetery was resurrected in the early 1990s by a state-owned body called Mosproject-4. The designer Alexander Taranin said he wanted to create a minimalistic cemetery that gave a quiet and honest reflection of Russia.

“We tried to show the difficult road the country has travelled while still being optimistic about the future,” he said.

The Yeltsin government ignored the project but the plans gained traction after Mr Putin came to power in 2000. But as the liberalism of the 1990s gave way to Putin’s authoritarianism, Mosproject-4 fell out of fashion. Russia’s generals felt that a Soviet theme would be fitting for the final resting place of Russia’s presidents and national heroes.

Mosproject was usurped by the Combine of Monumental Decorative Art, a turgid Soviet-era state institution that was again in the Kremlin’s favour.

Its chief architect, Sergei Goryaev, was only too happy to oblige the generals - even if it meant aping the neo-classical style of the past that had done so much to give Moscow its oppressive atmosphere.

“What is oppressive to you is solemn and glorious to us,” he said. “The Soviet empire’s style has many beautiful examples which are among the highlights of 20th century architecture anywhere.”

An updated funeral ceremony for heads of state is also being developed that restores some of the militaristic traditions of the past. When Mr Putin dies, his corpse will be transported to the cemetery’s pantheon in an armoured personnel carrier before being laid to rest, Mr Goryaev said.

He added that it was possible that leading figures from the Soviet era, such as Stalin, could be reburied in the cemetery.

It is possible that Lenin could be moved there as well.

General Petraeus and President Bush enjoying themselves in Iraq

MTV News | Jan 23, 2008

President cited as most frequent liar, with 259 false statements about weapons of mass destruction and more.

By Gil Kaufman

For years, the Bush administration has faced charges that it bent the truth or flat-out misled the public about Iraq’s alleged stockpile of weapons of mass destruction in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of the country. Now, a study by two nonprofit journalism organizations claims that President Bush and top officials in his administration issued nearly 1,000 false statements about the security threat posed by Iraq in the wake of 9/11.

The results of the study were posted Tuesday on the Web site for the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity, which worked on the project with the Fund for Independence in Journalism. “On at least 532 separate occasions (in speeches, briefings, interviews, testimony and the like), Bush and these three key officials [Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld], along with former Secretary of State Colin Powell, former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and former White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan, stated unequivocally that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (or was trying to produce or obtain them), links to al Qaeda or both. This concerted effort was the underpinning of the Bush administration’s case for war,” reads the report.

Entitled “False Pretenses,” the report claims that the statements were “part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.” According to The Associated Press, White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said he could not comment on the study because he had not seen it.

Of the 935 false statements made by the administration, according to the study, Bush was reported to have led all White House officials with 259 false statements, which included 231 about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 28 about Iraq’s links to al Qaeda. Second on the list was Powell with 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq and al-Qaeda.

“It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al Qaeda,” wrote authors Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism. “In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003.”

Relying on what it described as a “massive database” of information that fed the results of the project, the authors said their research was based on juxtaposing what President Bush and the top officials in his administration said in public against what was known, “or should have been known, on a day-to-day basis.” The searchable database includes public statements drawn from both primary sources like official transcripts and secondary sources like the reporting of major news organizations over the two years beginning on September 11, 2001. It also used information from more than 25 government reports, books, articles, speeches and interviews.

An example given in the report is a portion of an address given at the national convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars on August 26, 2002, during which Cheney said, “Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies and against us.” According to the report, former CIA Director George Tenet later said Cheney’s assertions went well beyond his agency’s assessments at the time, and another CIA official, referring to the speech, told a prominent journalist, “Our reaction was, ‘Where is he getting this stuff from?’ “

The study came under immediate fire from some conservative bloggers, who painted it as “leftist propaganda” and pointed out that it came from an organization funded by billionaire George Soros, who has given millions to a number of liberal think tanks and advocacy organizations. Steve Carpinelli, a spokesman for the Center, denied the charges and said the organization does not advocate any agenda, endorse any legislation or engage in any of the actions of an advocacy group. “What we’ve included here is all factual information that we were able to quantify and put into a form that people can search using a database,” said Carpinelli, who added that Soros contributed general funds to the organization in 2004, but that those funds were not used for the report and that they were not nearly the “millions” quoted by detractors.

As for criticism that the report does not have any new information but rather rehashes already-reported facts, Carpinelli said, “The difference is that while there have been many intelligence reports that came out that contradicted a lot of statements from administration officials, there’s been nothing that could show you how it was a coordinated effort.” The report is accompanied by a bar graph that Carpinelli said shows how the false statements reached their peak in the months prior to the March 2003 launch of the Iraq war and how they tapered off soon after.

Sarkozy gives the secret hand-signal of the elite. A hint of rouge would bring those cheekbones up nicely

Telegraph | Jan 15, 2008

By Henry Samuel in Paris

President Nicolas Sarkozy of France spent 35,000 euros (£26,200) on make-up to woo the French electorate in last year’s presidential elections, French auditors have discovered.

A commission looking into the expenses of last year’s presidential candidates was reportedly shocked to discover that Mr Sarkozy, recently blasted as “narcissistic” by the Socialist opposition, had spent in some cases 450 euros an hour on face and hair make-overs.

His defeated rival, Ségolène Royal, spent even more, however, reaching 52,000 euros for make-up and hairdressing.

The commission spent six months looking at all the candidate’s expenses to decide how much they should be reimbursed by the state.

Judging that the sums were “manifestly excessive” for an activity that was “normally of a personal nature”, it only paid back 12,000 euros to Mr Sarkozy and 17,000 euros to Miss Royal.

The figures are likely to shock the French public at a time when the country is obsessed with falling purchasing power.

The Socialist, who is gunning to take over her party, was also refused reimbursement for the 53,500 euros she spent on electronic bugging detectors for her campaign headquarters. Miss Royal’s team had accused Mr Sarkozy, the former interior minister, of getting domestic intelligence services to track its members.

In all, the commission decided to reimburse roughly half of the 21 million euros the two candidates each spent on their campaigns.

The far-Right Front National leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, was denied reimbursement for the 157,000 euros he spent on a reception for party militants.

L’Express magazine worked out that the most expensive candidate per vote won was communist leader Marie-George Buffet. She spent 6.81 euros per vote compared to 1.83 euros for Mr Sarkozy.

The lowest ratio went to Trotskyite postman Olivier Besancenot, at 0.61 euros per vote.

Pensioner arrested and locked in cell for shouting at yobs who threw stones at ducks

This is London | Jan 19, 2008

A pensioner who ordered a gang of youths to stop throwing bricks at ducks on a canal was arrested and thrown into a cell by police.

Instead the stunned great-grandfather was hauled off to a police cell accused of attacking the youths on the canal bank.

Yesterday the retired miner - who has a heart condition and diabetes - spoke of his shock and humiliation over the arrest.

He said : “I was shocked when a police officer turned up on my doorstep. I had made a number of complaints about anti-social behaviour from these yobs so I expected it was a response to that.

“I was quite happy to invite him in but then he said I was being arrested and taken to the station accused of assault. I thought it was a joke at first but then I realised he was perfectly serious.

“The officer ordered me to take the laces out my shoes as I was being arrested for common assault. I didn’t know what to think.”

Mr Marshall was driven to the police station and put into a cell before having to wait two hours for a duty solicitor.

He was interviewed by officers over the alleged assault before finally being released pending further inquiries.

But weeks after the incident police have now formally dropped any charges against the pensioner and apologised.

Mr Marshall’s ordeal began shortly before Christmas when he spotted the group of teenage boys throwing bricks at ducks as he walked along the banks of the Chesterfield Canal.

He shouted at them to stop but received a barrage of abuse from the aggressive gang who continued to throw stones.

Mr Marshall of Shireoaks, near Worksop, Notts admitted shouting back at the group in anger but said he was nowhere near them and did not touch them.

However one youth reported the incident to police claiming the pensioner had struck him during the altercation.

He said: “One of the yobs said I had hit him and so they took his word against mine. I might have lost my temper and shouted at them but I did not hit anybody.

“I am a 73-year-old pensioner and they were a gang of youths. I wasn’t going to try and take them on at my age.”

“It took 73 years for an idiot to put me in jail. All I did was try to stop these louts throwing rocks at the ducks on the canal.

“I felt degraded spending time in that cell. I can’t believe I ended up in jail at my age. I’ve never seen the inside of a cell before and I don’t want to see it again. The police seemed to automatically assumed I was guilty instead of talking to me first.”

Mr Marshall said the same gang had targetted him and his wife, Margaret, 72, at their home in recent months.

His case was taken up by local councillor, Ivor Jones, who thought Mr Marshall had been unfairly treated by police.

Sufferers Say Mysterious Colored Fibers Grow on Their Skin, Like Hair

Those living with Morgellons disease describe a mysterious fibrous material running through their skin. 

ABC | Jan 16, 2008

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced today that it is launching a study to learn about an unexplained condition that causes people to feel as if they have foreign substances growing from their bodies.

People with the condition, referred to as Morgellons disease, say they have fibers and other inorganic material growing out of their skin.

“We earnestly want to learn more about this unexplained illness, which affects the lives of those who suffer from it,” said Dr. Michele Pearson, principal investigator leading the study for the CDC, in a press release. “Those who suffer have questions, and we want to help them.”

“We have a team of epidemiologists, laboratorians and pathologists to carry out the study,” Pearson said.

The study will be conducted in conjunction with Kaiser Permanente’s Northern California Division of Research. For more information, CLICK HERE to visit the CDC’s Unexplained Dermopathy Web site.

Watch the story tonight on “Nightline” at 11:35 p.m. ET and “Good Morning America” Thursday at 7 a.m.

In 2006, a number of Morgellons sufferers told ABC News in interviews that when they consulted doctors, they received diagnoses they called wrong or dismissive. Brandi Koch, the wife of former Major League Baseball player Billy Koch, said that she felt as if she were living in a horror movie, claiming she had colored fibers coming out of her skin.

Koch, of Clearwater Beach, Fla., said that her life was good until one day in the shower when she noticed something strange — tiny fibers running through her skin.

“The fibers look like hair, and they’re different colors,” Koch said.

Koch said she knows that what she experienced “sounds crazy,” but it’s true. “If I had a family member call me up and say, ‘I have this stuff,’ I’d say, ‘I’m sending a straitjacket over. You need some help,’” she said.

Anne Dill described a similar condition. Looking at Dill’s life in Florida, she seemed to be living the American dream — her three daughters excelled in sports and were straight-A students.

But life in the Dill household was far from idyllic. Anne’s 40-year-old husband, Tom, died in January 2006, and she believes his death was due to a contagious illness that has infected her entire family.

Dill described her family’s skin: “There’s this fibrous material. It’s in layers.” Dill said the skin on their hands was particularly bad, very swollen and itchy, and said it felt as if bugs were crawling underneath the skin.

Consulting Doctors

Dr. Greg Smith of Gainesville, Ga., has been a pediatrician for the past 30 years. He claimed that a fiber was coming out of his big toe, and he had video footage to prove it.

“It felt like somebody stuck a pin in my toe and wiggled it, and it just continued to hurt,” Smith told ABC News in 2006.

He said he never thought he had bugs. “I’ve certainly had those crawling sensations, and the fibers which come out of the skin are really bizarre, and really odd.”

Smith was handed over to a hospital psychiatrist when he went to the emergency room complaining of a fiber in his eye. He admits that he, too, would be skeptical if a patient came to him with the same story.

“I would wonder if they’d taken their medicine that day. It makes no sense. It’s totally bizarre. It’s something that — just telling the story is so outlandish on the face of it — that no one would believe it,” Smith said. Dill’s doctor told her to stop scratching, even though many of her sores were in places she could not reach.

Koch went to the Mayo Clinic, where doctors didn’t believe that the fibers she’d brought them had grown from her body.

“I saw the infectious disease doctor, and I showed him some samples that I had and he snickered,” she said. “I can’t go through another doctor blowing me off or looking at me like I’m crazy. I know I’m not.”

Dr. Vincent DeLeo, chief of dermatology at New York’s St. Lukes-Roosevelt Medical Center, weighed in on what he’d say to someone who came to him with this condition. “I don’t think this is any different than many patients I’ve seen who have excoriations and believe that there is something in their skin causing this,” he told ABC News in 2006.

DeLeo said the open lesions were most likely a result of scratching the skin.

Relying on Your Own Research

But biologist Mary Leitao refused to accept the medical skepticism surrounding Morgellons.

Leitao’s son, Drew, was just 2 years old when Leitao noticed an odd sore on his lip that would not heal.

“He very simply said ‘bugs,’ and he pointed to his lips,” said Leitao.

Leitao never expected to find herself at the center of a medical storm. But when her son complained about the strange sore, the biologist, who once ran the electron microscope at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, did what any scientist would do. She took a closer look.

“What I saw were bundles of fibers, balls of fibers,” Leitao says. “There was red and blue.” Even stranger, they glowed under ultraviolet light.

Armed with research, Leitao took her son to a doctor at one of the country’s leading hospitals. He dismissed her tale of fibers and wrote to her pediatrician, saying that her son needed Vaseline for his lips and that his mother needed a thorough psychiatric evaluation.

Undaunted, Leitao began poring through medical literature looking for clues. What she discovered was a 17th-century reference to a strange disease with “harsh hairs” called “Morgellons.”

She named the strange fibers Morgellons disease and put the information on a Web site, Morgellons.org. At the time of her interview in 2006, more than 4,500 people had contacted Leitao, claiming they had Morgellons-type symptoms. The name stuck, and the disease was featured on the television show “ER.”

But do these fibers grow from inside the body, as Morgellons patients believe, or do they come from the external environment — a kind of lint — as the medical skeptics say?

Searching for an Answer

Forensic scientist Ron Pogue at the Tulsa Police Crime Lab in Oklahoma checked a Morgellons sample against known fibers in the FBI’s national database. “No, no match at all. So this is some strange stuff,” Pogue said in 2006. He thought the skeptics were wrong. “This isn’t lint. This is not a commercial fiber. It’s not.”

The lab’s director, Mark Boese, said the fibers are “consistent with something that the body may be producing.” He added that, “These fibers cannot be manmade and do not come from a plant. This could be a byproduct of a biological organism.”

Dill said she looks at pictures of her family and finds them unrecognizable. “My kids have to see not only their dad but their mom disintegrating, and that’s gotta be really scary.”

While they wait for evidence that they hope will convince the medical community to take them seriously, some Morgellon’s sufferers wear pink bracelets that say, simply, “Fortitude.”

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