• Progress Happens.

    A small press run by science nerds recently published my book, The Year of the Mite, which is based on my family’s zoonotic infestation by the poultry mite Dermanyssus gallinae.  These are nocturnal parasites about the size of the point of a pin that tend to pick out one favorite in a flock…
  • False Diagnosis of Delusional Parasitosis

    Below is a link to an article comparing false negative rates using various methods of testing for mites. I believe the PCR method was first used in studies of Demodex and showed much higher rates than with old methods. The interesting thing is, if you read articles in the psychotherapy…
  • The Mite Fight: Breaking a Negative Cycle

    It has been more than fifty years since human erythrocytes were first identified in the gut of a Dermanyssus gallinae (red poultry mite) in a New York City apartment.  The journal article that disclosed this finding is interesting not only for its scientific content but also for what it tells us…
  • The Impact of Patient Organization on Health Care

    I have been reading Steve Silberman's excellent book Neurotribes, in which he discusses the ways families with autism organized to change the old paradigm of the "refrigerator mom," the now-discredited idea that mothers caused autism by psychologically rejecting their babies in utero.  It seems to me that the challenges with…
  • Host Expansion in Mites.

    Paradigm Shifts are Hard to Do: Host Expansion in Mites. The process of publishing The Year of the Mite has been fascinating. The support from our community is terrific.  And in that community I include not only folks who have (or have had) parasitic mites, but also the many professionals…