Mystery parasites plague East Valley woman

By J. Craig Anderson, Tribune

When Sarah Brewer begged a state health official in April to help rid her of thousands of tiny parasites overtaking her home and burrowing beneath her skin, he gave her the number of a good psychiatrist.

One after another, doctors have told the Queen Creek resident and her loved ones that she suffers from a mental condition known as “delusive parasitosis,” the false belief that malignant organisms are living and crawling under the skin.

Brewer is covered in blood-red sores, which doctors have insisted are either self-induced or psychosomatic. She can’t sleep. She can’t work. She feels sick. She talks of suicide.

“I’m about to lose everything I worked for because everyone has abandoned me,” said Brewer, 37, in tears. “Even my friends have turned against me — they thought I was just trying to get attention.”

But in mid-August, she learned about a group of medical researchers who say it’s the medical community that is fooling itself, and that there is an all-too-real infestation with strong East Valley ties that has ruined thousands of lives, torn apart families and landed some victims in mental institutions.

There is even a support group online for people with the illness, Brewer discovered, at www.skinparasites.com.

One researcher, Deborah Altschuler of the nonprofit National Pediculosis Association, based in Massachusetts, has been following the disease for years and says the first victim she ever heard from was a Scottsdale woman.

Altschuler formed the Pediculosis Association in 1983 to spread awareness about head lice and scabies, but her organization soon began receiving calls about a bizarre skin disease whose victims complained of unusual but nearly identical symptoms.

“Unlike the doctors, we didn’t assume that they didn’t know what they were talking about,” Altschuler said. “How could they all be so crazy in the same way?”

Her association has registered more than 1,800 victims with eerily similar stories. The bulk of calls initially came from Arizona and California and has now spread to Texas, New York, Florida and elsewhere.

Like Brewer, most victims believed they had been misdiagnosed as delusional. Many ended up trying to treat themselves, with bug sprays, lice treatments and folk cures that usually just made things worse.

Many callers said their problems began after a water leak or a flooding in the home — an interesting detail, Altschuler thought. Could a leak somehow trigger an ecological avalanche that leads to the disease?

In Brewer’s case, a washing machine leak she discovered in December had allowed mold to grow undetected under the floors, and the subsequent damage gave mice and the filth they carry on their bodies an entryway into her air-conditioning ducts. For weeks, Brewer unwittingly blew the contaminants into her home simply by turning on the air conditioner.

By the time she realized what was going on, Brewer was suffering from a laundry list of symptoms including headaches, nausea and skin irritation.

Then the sores came, and the crawling sensations. Brewer said she began to see black, hairlike organisms breaking through the surface of her skin and then disappearing back underneath.

“I could feel them running down my arm and hatching and stuff,” she said.

None who challenge the “delusive” diagnosis claim to understand the disease’s true cause, but one possibility is that the victim becomes contaminated with mold or bacteria, and then tiny organisms that feed off those substances take over.

Altschuler’s group published a study in June that seems to support the mold theory.

They selected 20 people at random and collected samples of their skin, which were analyzed and photographed digitally through a microscope.

What they captured on film has some scientists scratching their heads — and others shaking theirs in utter disbelief.

Collembola, tiny shrimplike invertebrates that feed on fungus and bacteria, were found in 18 of the 20 test subjects, while none appeared in skin samples from the study’s control group, the study states.

“There were massive amounts of them,” Altschuler said.

What does it mean? The results were not conclusive, but because collembola break down organic matter including fungus and bacteria, those substances are likely a factor in their presence.

Still, Altschuler and her theories have their critics.

Arizona Department of Health Services vector-borne disease program manager Craig Levy said Altschuler has been talking about collembola for years as a cause for skin disease, but that leading research organizations such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention disagree.

“If the CDC had found any such evidence to support it, we would have all heard about it,” Levy said.

Although the Pediculosis Association’s peer-reviewed study was done in conjunction with the Oklahoma State Department of Health and published in the New York Entomological Society journal, biologist Ken Christiansen of Grinnell College in Iowa said he is dubious of the results and doesn’t think the air-breathing collembola could even survive underneath human skin.

“I personally would be delighted if collembola could be shown to be disease agents, but we need real evidence,” said Christiansen, who has specialized in collembola studies since 1948.

Still, he is convinced the skin disease is not psychological.

Whatever the cause, Altschuler said she is trying to raise awareness so more research can be done.

Like many victims, Brewer’s symptoms begin to subside as long as she stays away from her house. For this reason, she has all but abandoned the home she worked so hard to buy.

She now lives a nomadic lifestyle, staying at a friend or relative’s home until her host’s frustration over the lack of improvement or fear of contracting the illness forces Brewer to move on.

She has lost her job of 17 years at a major food store chain (it’s illegal for workers to have open sores), she has no health insurance, bills are piling up and she’s about to lose the home that inexplicably turned against her.

Insurance has paid for some of the repairs, cleaning and fumigating her home requires, but Brewer still gets sick whenever she goes there.

Worst of all, Brewer said, is the fact that she can’t get anyone to believe her, much less treat her.

“I feel that I’ve totally slipped between the cracks,” she said.

Contact J. Craig Anderson by e-mail, or phone (480) 898-6474

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