“Preliminary findings suggest a link between Morgellons Disease and Agrobacterium, a soil bacterium extensively manipulated and used in making GM crops; has genetic engineering created a new epidemic?”

Vitaly Citovsky is a professor of molecular and cell biology at Stony Brook University in New York (SUNY). He is a world authority on the genetic modification of cells by Agrobacterium, a soil bacterium causing crown gall disease in plants, that has been widely used in creating genetically modified (GM) plants since the 1980s because of its ability to transfer a piece of its genetic material, the T-DNA on its tumour-inducing (Ti) plasmid to the plant genome ….

Citovsky’s team took scanning electron microscope pictures of the fibres in or extruding from the skin of patients suffering from Morgellons disease, confirming that they are unlike any ordinary natural or synthetic fibres.

They also analysed patients for Agrobacterium DNA. Skin biopsy samples from Morgellons patients were subjected to high-stringency polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests for genes encoded by the Agrobacterium chromosome and also for Agrobacterium virulence (vir) genes and T-DNA on its Ti plasmid. They found that “all Morgellons patients screened to date have tested positive for the presence of Agrobacterium, whereas this microorganism has not been detected in any of the samples derived from the control, healthy individuals.” Their preliminary conclusion is that “Agrobacterium may be involved in the etiology and/or progression” of Morgellons Disease.

… Agrobacterium not only infects human and other animal cells, it also transfers genes into them. It was SUNY professor Citovsky and his team that made the discovery some years ago. Until then, the genetic engineering community had assumed that Agrobacterium did not infect animal cells, and certainly would not transfer genes into them.

Agrobacterium was found to transfer T-DNA into the chromosomes of human cells.

… Since the discovery in the 1970s that Agrobacterium can transfer genes into plants causing crown gall disease, the soil bacterium has been developed into a vector for inserting desirable genes into the plant genome to create transgenic (GM) plants.

… By the late 1990s, the Agrobacterium vector system became very widely used, and many GM crops created were commercially released.

… Transgenic plants with contaminating Agrobacterium “have a ready route for horizontal gene escape, via Agrobacterium, helped by the ordinary conjugative mechanisms of many other bacteria that cause diseases, which are present in the environment.” In the process, new and exotic disease agents could be created.

- Dr. Mae-Wan Ho and Prof. Joe Cummins @ GlobalResearch.ca: Link.

See Also

Morgellons @ Wikipedia

Morgellons Watch: “Resources for Morgellons investigators. Skeptical analysis and discussion.”