More Morgellons

Crystal Clear

Got the Morgs? You need a laugh. And we need answers about Morgellons Disease.

  1. The MRF Ghosts of Coast to Coast

    2D AGO

    The MRF Ghosts of Coast to Coast

    On today's show: A Correction: cat hair was found in diabetes drugs, not vaccines. Novo Nordisk’s $16.5 billion acquisition Catalent — FDA contamination at the Indiana facility.Your host Crystal is a former clinical trials manager who read a Form 990 recreationally, and it ruined her life. Today we’re doing a forensic accounting of nothing.THE MORGELLONS RESEARCH FOUNDATION IRS FILINGSThe Morgellons Research Foundation (MRF), "founded" by Mary Leitao, filed IRS Form 990 returns showing zero program service expenses. Not low. Zero.2004 Form 990: $318 in contributions. $0 expenses.2005 Form 990: $0 program expenses.2006 Form 990: Missing. This is the peak year — national TV, maximum donations, phones ringing. That return has never been located. Revenue reported retroactively: ~$29,000.MRF’s sole named grant recipient was Thornton/Thorstensen Labs. Operator Michael Carlson was later indicted on 51 counts of falsifying test results. The lab was already decertified by the time the grant was granted. The MRF patient registry — real people, real names — has never been accounted for. No response to date from 2.23.26 open records request to OHSU.THE DOMAINmorgellons.org was registered March 14, 2002 by dkornsin@hotmail.com — not Mary Leitao, not any board member. That registrant possibly links to 2345.com, Chinese software infrastructure. Earliest site capture (June 5, 2002) lists a California fax number, contact morgellons@aol.com, and web designer Amy DiFerrari.DOUGLAS EWING BUCKNER SR —Fake DOCTORDouglas Buckner is listed as Vice President of the MRF board and identified as “Dr. Douglas Buckner PhD” on federal tax documents, in the Washington Post Magazine, and on Coast to Coast AM (February 2005). He is not a doctor. No MD. No PhD. No dissertation, residency, license, or verifiable work history. Born July 1946, Tennessee. Lived in Waycross, Georgia 35 years. Now on his father’s land in Montgomery County, Tennessee. Bankruptcy filing, tax lien on record. His wife Janelle Fossen is the MRF board secretary. Two board seats, one household.On the 2005 Coast to Coast broadcast, host George Noory calls him a physician and Doctor repeatedly. Buckner never corrects him. He describes Morgellons symptoms accurately but frames the fibers as visually bizarre. They’re not — they look like common textile fibers. The actual anomaly is fibers embedded under intact skin and emerging from wounds. The paranormal framing is intentionally discrediting perhaps, guilty as charged. KENNETH COWLES — DIED IN HIS SLEEP AT 53Kenneth Cowles served as MRF Director of PR and Media, unpaid. Day job: production assistant on Guiding Light. He says he found Morgellons by sending a mass email looking for a story and hearing back from a woman in Tacoma, Washington. Didn’t believe her at first. Eventually did. That led him to Mary Leitao.From a soap opera set, Cowles placed Morgellons on KTVU Fox San Francisco, stations in Reno and Houston, and in 2006 on ABC News prime time and NBC. Correction: the rumored $10,000 plane ticket to Tulsa and $2,000 phone bill were Kenneth Cowles, not Dale Cowler.Kenneth Cowles died October 2007, age 53. “Peacefully in his sleep,” per Mary Leitao. Forty-eight days after Charles E. Holman, former MRF chairman, died at 54. Holman had asked Mary for access to the financial statements and was refused. Mary’s husband Edward Leitao died at 54 of cardiac arrest months before she incorporated the MRF. Three men connected to this foundation. All dead in their 50s. Nobody wrote about it.MRF BOARD: William T. Harvey (chairman, NASA), Mary Leitao (founder), Douglas Buckner (VP, not a doctor), Dale Cowler (CPA/treasurer), Janelle Fossen (secretary, Buckner’s wife), Kenneth Cowles (PR, deceased), Charles E. Holman (former chair, deceased).OSU open records request 26-100 filed February 23, 2026 — no response. Death certificates not known for Edward Leitao, Charles Holman, Kenneth Cowles.moremorgellons.com

    29 min
  2. Why Portland? Or Kudos to Keller

    6D AGO

    Why Portland? Or Kudos to Keller

    Morgellons disease has been searched more in Portland, Oregon than any other city on Earth for 22 consecutive years according to Google Trends data from 2004 to present. Portland scores 100 on the search interest index. Seattle is second at 86. Boca Raton Florida third at 80. By country the United States leads at 100, Canada 76, Austria 57, Italy 53, Germany 50. No published paper on Morgellons disease has ever investigated the geographic clustering of cases in Portland Oregon. This episode asks why. Jesse Keller MD at Oregon Health and Science University OHSU is the only researcher in the United States conducting molecular bench science on Morgellons tissue. His 2023 paper in Archives of Dermatological Research found elevated oncostatin M expression in lesional skin biopsies of Morgellons patients compared to healthy controls. Oncostatin M is an inflammatory cytokine known to sensitize pain and itch neurons. His 2024 paper in British Journal of Dermatology documented that Morgellons patients report lower quality of life than patients with psoriasis atopic dermatitis and prurigo nodularis. Keller was featured on OPB Think Out Loud on March 10 2026 discussing Morgellons disease. Referenced research: Keller Liu Latour 2023 Archives of Dermatological Research. Gipple Latour Keller Dhami 2024 British Journal of Dermatology. Pearson Vuolo Freire Merritt Klotter Maughan Montanez Amobi Middleton Dahlgren 2012 PLoS One CDC unexplained dermopathy study. Beuerlein Balogh Feldman 2021 Dermatology Online Journal. Akbarialiabad Salehi Murrell Jafferany 2025 Archives of Dermatological Research confirming zero randomized controlled trials exist for Morgellons treatment. More Morgellons podcast. Hosted by Summer. Over 400 episodes heard in 100 plus countries. Top 5 percent on Listen Notes. Available on all major podcast platforms. Website to leave CC a VM is www.moremorgellons.com

    15 min
  3. Morgellons.org and the Disappearing Database

    MAR 10

    Morgellons.org and the Disappearing Database

    Both morgellons.org and morgellons.com were registered March 14, 2002. The registrant was not Mary Leitao or her husband Edward Leitao (an internist who died suddenly two years later and whose name appears in no subsequent MRF publication, board filing, press release, or congressional testimony). The registrant is listed as “dkornsin” (K-O-R-N-S-I-N), with an associated email address of dkornsin@hotmail.com. No Kornsin appears in Pennsylvania nonprofit records or Pennsylvania public address records from this period. A user named “D. Kornsin” appears on BlackHatWorld, a black hat SEO forum, with a join date of January 2011 — resurfacing a decade later asking about domain resale value. The email cluster associated with the WHOIS data connects to Chinese software distribution infrastructure, specifically the 2345.com ecosystem — a major Chinese tech platform known in malware analysis circles for grey-zone adware distribution behind deliberately obscure registrant contacts. An associated email address, ch3web@hotmail.com, also traces into that infrastructure. The domain was made private in October 2017 — six years after the MRF officially dissolved. Someone was still maintaining it then, and someone is still maintaining it today. The MRF Patient Registry and Dissolution The MRF dissolution announcement, dated February 15, 2012, stated the organization was no longer active and not accepting registrations or donations. Remaining funds were donated to the Oklahoma State University Foundation to support Morgellons disease research. The dissolution was filed using IRS Form 990-N, the minimum possible instrument, available only when gross receipts fall below $50,000. No program descriptions, no asset disposition schedule, no documentation of what happened to organizational property. The patient registry — containing self-reported onset dates, locations, symptom profiles, occupational information, and geographic clustering data from over 12,000 families across all 50 states and at least 15 countries — has no documented public disposition. Its transfer to OSU, if it occurred, left no public trace. Historical Source Material: Mick West / Morgellons Watch The episode references a 2007 post from Mick West’s Morgellons Watch site with 101 comments, and reads from a post by a commenter identified as “Nissi,” who described receiving 177 viruses from Morgellons-related websites, identified by her husband — the owner of a communications company who had previously been recruited by the FBI. Full coverage of Mick West’s role is flagged for a dedicated future episode. Andrew Huff / EcoHealth Alliance Connection The episode references prior season coverage of Andrew Huff’s FOIA request and his allegation that Peter Daszak, head of EcoHealth Alliance (the organization involved in gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology), told Huff he had been working with the CIA since 2015. Huff later retracted the FOIA request after reporting organized harassment by the U.S. government. An open records request has been filed with Oklahoma State University (request 26-100) seeking documentation related to research agreements, contracts, MOUs, and CRADAs connected to Morgellons research — including any records related to the patient registry transfer. Response pending. Names and Entities for the Record Mary Leitao, Edward Leitao, dkornsin, dkornsin@hotmail.com, ch3web@hotmail.com, 2345.com, BlackHatWorld, William T. Harvey, Virginia Savely, Greg Smith, Charles Holman, Kenneth Cowles, Cindy Casey, Mick West, Morgellons Watch, Morgellons Research Foundation, MRF, morgellons.org, morgellons.com, IRS Form 990-N, Oklahoma State University, Randy Wymore, Sherry Taylor, Andrew Huff, Peter Daszak, EcoHealth Alliance, Wuhan Institute of Virology, CIA, FBI, NASA Johnson Space Center, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Office of Naval Research, Journal of Medical Case Reports. https://youtube.com/shorts/gwHOQ477KXo?si=KvELgLokZpBComMJ

    15 min
4.8
out of 5
18 Ratings

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Got the Morgs? You need a laugh. And we need answers about Morgellons Disease.