Jay Traver

Who is Jay Traver?

Jay Traver, an entomologist, published a paper in Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington called "Unusual Scalp Dermatitis in Humans Caused by the Mite, Dermatophagoides." in 1951. This paper was a comprehensive study of a mite infestation of her scalp. Travers was the only one who could detect the mites, and they resisted all forms of treatment. This was a hallucination. Travers was diagnosed with Delusory Parasitosis, or Ekbom syndrome. This is an illness in which the victim believes that there are bugs living underneath their skin that will not go away, and that nobody else can detect. Therefore, to Traver, all of the results in the published paper are completely true. However, the issue is then raised on if the paper should be retracted for scientific misconduct being as the results are false. When this question is raised, some then argue that retracting the paper will be discrimination against the mentally ill. Another side argues that even though the results were hallucinated, that this paper could instead be a study on the disease itself coming first hand.