Tiny Bugs Wreak Havoc; Report of Collembola as Human Parasites Supports Recent Research Findings
A 1955 report to the medical literature, apparently overlooked or ignored, sheds new light on the National Pediculosis Association's efforts to alert the medical community and health officials to the ability of Collembola to infest humans.
Needham, MA (PRWEB) August 19, 2005 -- Collembola, also known as springtails
or snow fleas, are described in the authoritative "Biology of Springtails" by
Hopkin as among the most widespread and abundant terrestrial arthropods on
earth.
Collembola are referred to as the earliest fossil proof of insect
life on the planet. Why should people care? Collembola are being found in human
hair and skin. Infestations appear to be communicable from particular
environmental conditions or from one person to another, and there is no known
cure once a person is infested. And worse yet, people desperate for medical help
with this problem are seldom taken seriously.
A 1955 report to the
medical literature, apparently overlooked or ignored, sheds new light on the
problem and the National Pediculosis Association's (NPA) efforts to alert the
medical community and public health officials to the ability of Collembola to
infest or colonize humans. (http://www.headlice.org/news/2005/0519.htm)
In 2004,
the National Pediculosis Association reported Collembola in skin scrapings
collected from 18 of 20 research participants in its study published in the
Journal of the New York Entomological Society at http://www.headlice.org/news/2004/delusory.htm.
Some
Collembola experts disagreed with the NPA's research findings, insisting that it
was impossible for Collembola to live in human skin.
Deborah Altschuler,
lead author of the NPA paper, likens the scenario of Collembola and humans to
the discovery of Helicobacter (H.) pylori otherwise hidden in the stomach
lining, and the erroneous yet long held assumption that the stomach was a
sterile environment and that peptic ulcers were caused by lifestyle choices.
According to Kimball C. Atwood IV, MD., physicians scoffed when first faced with
the notion of a bacterial basis for peptic ulcer disease.
Altschuler
asserts that there is more of a scientific basis for Collembola in humans than
the entomologist and physician's overwhelming acceptance of a psychiatric
explanation (Delusions of Parasitosis) for people's sensations of biting,
stinging and crawling in their skin.
The more symptoms are discounted as
delusions, the more determined sufferers become to document their reality. Such
was the topic of a one hour public radio interview with David from Canada who
told of how Collembola wreaked havoc on his life and described his battle to
have his symptoms taken seriously. (The interview is available at www.headlice.org/news.)
Barbara Glickstein, MPH, RN, co-host of New York City's WBAI Radio
"HealthStyles," began the interview stating, “It is invariably the sufferers who
bring first attention of a new disease to the medical community.”
And it
was another sufferer, Michael, who searching on the internet came upon the title
of a paper describing Collembola as human parasites, and notified the NPA.
The NPA says even the experts appear to have missed this 1955 Swedish
Medical Journal report in which the well-respected entomologist, anthropologist
and author, Felix Bryk, refers to the incidence of Collembola in humans as a
plague, making mention of colleagues who during that time had also found
Collembola as parasites in humans. Bryk said the Springtail Sira, (today's
spelling Seira), was a human parasite being confirmed for the first time in
Sweden. All this prompted him to write a report to the medical literature in
which he stated:
“Until now, Collembolans or “springtails” have played a
miniscule role as parasitic insects on the human body from an
entomological/medical standpoint. Rarely, if ever, are they mentioned in the
scientific literature. However the appearance of a previously unknown
Collembolan as an occasional parasite that for years caused depression in a
patient and continues to do so … has now rightly gotten the attention of
scientists.”
The NPA had the article translated from Swedish and the
first English translation of the Bryk report is now available on the NPA
website, www.headlice.org/swedish, with the permission of the Swedish
medical journal Lakartidningen.
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/8/prweb274087.htm