Gee i dunno but i think if red, white, black and blue fibres started sprouting out of my skin i might go a little mental too.

Morgellons is currently being moderately investigated due to increasing public awareness. The condition today was so named because the Leitao's mother (nurse w/a BS in biology) and father (internist) found the condition their 2 year old son was suffering documented in a letter from 1690 that described similar symptoms in children in Languedoc. These 2 medical professionals have been accused of having Munchausen's by proxy because specialists could find no medically known reason for their son's lesions. Since they started the Morgellons Research Foundation over 12,000 families from US, UK, Australia, Canada and the Netherlands have contacted them describing similar symptoms.

The description of the syndrome and Joni's admission that it sounds like alien infection reminds me of Smilla's Sense of Snow. An Inuit child is murdered to cover up his father's (and possibly his own) infection from a alien life form discovered in in a meteor inside a glacier. Good book - the film was dire.