Coming to a town near you - this is right out of a Hollywood screenplay. Sores erupt on your skin, mysterious threads pop out of them, and you feel like tiny bugs are crawling all over you.

Some experts believe it’s a psychiatric phenomenon, yet hundreds of people say it’s a true physical condition. It’s called Morgellons, and now the US government is about to begin its first medical study of it.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has contracted a major research lab to test and interview patients suffering from Morgellons’ (pronounced mor-GELL-uns). bizarre symptoms. The one-year effort will attempt to define the condition and better determine how common it is.

Morgellons sufferers describe symptoms that include erupting sores, fatigue, the sensation of bugs crawling over them and, perhaps worst of all, mysterious red, blue or black fibres that sprout from their skin.

Some doctors believe the condition is a form of delusional parasitosis, a psychosis in which people believe they are infected with parasites. In the study, volunteers will get blood tests and skin exams, as well as psychological evaluations.

CDC officials acknowledged the study is limited and the results won’t give a complete picture of the problem. Any fibres or specks that are collected from those who claim to be infected will be analysed at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.

Doctors who believe the condition is psychiatric suspect fibres are likely just threads from clothing. The CDC has been getting more than a dozen calls a week from self-diagnosed Morgellons patients for well over a year, and was urged to investigate by health practitioners and others.

Some say they’ve suffered for decades, but the syndrome did not get a name until 2002, when “Morgellons” was chosen from a 1674 medical paper describing similar symptoms.

CDC’s Morgellons Web page: http://www.cdc.gov/unexplaineddermopathy/