Dear Minister Michel,

This petition arises from prolonged federal inaction regarding Morgellons disease, the substantial body of new scientific evidence now requiring formal review, and the urgent need for an appropriate public-health response for affected patients in Canada.

In 2009, the Office of the Federal Minister of Health acknowledged Morgellons disease as an emerging public-health concern and stated that the available information was “extremely limited at this time.” That position was expressly conditional on the limited evidentiary record then available. It was not a final determination capable of justifying indefinite federal inaction.

Since that time, the scientific record has materially evolved. Peer-reviewed research has reported defined case criteria, objective biological findings, and dermal fibers composed of the body’s own structural proteins, including keratin and collagen. These findings were not available when the federal government first assessed the matter. Accordingly, the emergence of new and material evidence now requires the Government of Canada, through your office as Federal Minister of Health, to reopen and reassess Canada’s position on Morgellons disease.

Despite this changed evidentiary record, Morgellons disease remains without formal federal recognition, incidence tracking, renewed investigation, clinical guidance, or an appropriate public-health response in Canada. Public records confirm that the Public Health Agency of Canada is not formally tracking Morgellons disease and has no current plan for further investigative activity. This continued absence of federal action is no longer supported by the evidentiary record.

The consequences are not theoretical. Patients continue to report being dismissed, psychiatrically mislabeled, denied appropriate medical investigation, and treated with antipsychotic drugs despite documented biological findings. When a patient population is left untracked, unmanaged, and medically dismissed in the face of new biological evidence, the result is not merely administrative delay; it is a preventable public-health failure. That failure must now be corrected.

The CDC’s 2012 investigation, still widely relied upon to justify non-recognition of Morgellons disease, has been misapplied as an evidentiary basis for institutional inaction. According to Dr. Randy Wymore of Oklahoma State University’s Center for the Investigation of Morgellons Disease, the CDC study examined skin-fiber samples from only 12 subjects, none of whom had Morgellons disease. A study cannot credibly negate a disease by examining its defining physical evidence only in individuals who did not have that disease. On that basis, the CDC’s findings cannot reasonably be relied upon to deny recognition, suppress further investigation, or justify the continued absence of an appropriate public-health response.

We, the undersigned, therefore call upon the Government of Canada to:

1. Conduct a full and current review of the scientific evidence relating to Morgellons disease, including peer-reviewed findings concerning human-derived keratin and collagen fibers embedded in, or projecting from, skin tissue;

2. Direct the Public Health Agency of Canada to formally reopen its investigation into Morgellons disease, in light of the materially changed evidentiary record and the serious methodological limitations of prior government reliance on the CDC’s 2012 investigation;

3. Establish appropriate federal incidence tracking, research direction, clinical guidance, and public-health review, so that affected patients are no longer left without recognition, documentation, or medically appropriate pathways of care; and

4. Ensure that any renewed federal review is grounded in current medical evidence, procedural fairness, and objective scientific assessment, and is free from stigma, discrimination, dismissal, or unsupported psychiatric assumptions.

This petition does not seek special treatment. It seeks a lawful, evidence-based, good-faith public-health response to a condition that has remained unmanaged, under-investigated, and institutionally dismissed for far too long. Where new and material evidence has emerged, continued inaction is no longer neutral; it risks perpetuating avoidable harm to vulnerable patients who are entitled to recognition, investigation, and appropriate medical care.

We therefore respectfully request a formal public response from the Government of Canada and the Office of the Federal Minister of Health, including confirmation of what steps will be taken to review the current evidence, reconsider prior reliance on outdated or methodologically limited assessments, and ensure that Morgellons patients are treated with scientific seriousness, medical dignity, and equal protection within Canada’s public-health systems.

Signed,

The Canadian Public and the International Community