Dear editor

For editor:

Dear editor,

I am afraid the authors are completely complicit with the flawed idea that Morgellons is a disease entity. They have written the whole article avoiding the word delusional infestation (DI) and using terms like ultra-low antipsychotic doses when this is clearly not the case. They want to write an article that can be read by patients but not jeopardise their relationship with patients who read the article. I'm afraid that may not be possible. They need to come off the fence. They either want a scientific article in which case they need to use terms such as self-diagnosed Morgellons. They also need to make clear that Morgellons is likely to be a subtype of DI. They would need to acknowledge that the Middelveen article arguing for a causal relationship between Lyme's and Morgellons is fundamentally flawed. If they don't want to do this in order not to jeopardise relationships with patients, which is laudable, then they need to publish a different article that purely looks at prevalence data of their entire clinic. However, we cannot allow the publication of an article that gives credence to a flawed concept like Morgellons, which has no serious scientific support.

The article could be very interesting if the authors completely changed their approach to the description of Morgellons and presented a more sceptical view of the current scientific knowledge of this invented disease entity.

For authors,

I am afraid the authors are completely complicit with the flawed idea that Morgellons is an established disease entity. They have written the whole article avoiding the word delusional infestation (DI) and using terms like ultra-low antipsychotic doses when they merely use doses of antipsychotics lower than those used in schizophrenia. They want to write an article that can be read by patients without jeopardising their relationship with patients who read the article. I'm afraid that may not be possible. They need to come off the fence. They either want a scientific article in which case they need to use terms such as self-diagnosed Morgellons. They also need to make clear that Morgellons is likely to be a subtype of DI. They would need to acknowledge that the Middelveen article arguing for a causal relationship between Lyme's and Morgellons is fundamentally flawed. If they don't want to do this in order not to jeopardise relationships with patients, which is laudable, then they need to consider a very different unscientific format. However, we should not allow the publication of an article that gives credence to a flawed concept like Morgellons, which has no serious scientific support. The article could be very interesting if the authors completely changed their approach to the description of Morgellons and presented a more sceptical view of the current scientific knowledge of this invented disease entity.