People with Morgellons actually have an itch, we just don't know what the cause is or how to stop it; and they are resistant to any psychological treatment that aims to reduce the itch because they think you're accusing them of making it up. We do know that Morgellons is not any insect or alien creature.
I have more sympathy for people with Morgellons than for the electro-sensitives (apart from the fantastic amounts of stigma about mental illness they generate - both from people looking in but also from themselves.)
The fibres didn't match any of the 85,000 organic substances they had on their files. "I was both shocked and not shocked," recalls Wymore. "I already thought these fibres were kind of unusual, and this just validated it."
Wymore has now been working on the DNA of the fibres for five years. So far, none of the samples he has sent into the laboratory has proved to be anything mysterious. Results have included nylon, cotton, a human hair, a fungal fibre and a rodent hair.
The author moves on to another "expert" without pressing Wymore for either the status of the non-matches or an explanation of why human hair was not part of their 85,000-large library.
The part where he digs needles from his body and put them in a jar to show his wife who can't see anything in a jar reminded me of "A scanner darkly". Where a character is convinced he has lices and spends a whole day finding them and putting them in a jar just to find out later that the jar is empty.
I have more sympathy for people with Morgellons than for the electro-sensitives (apart from the fantastic amounts of stigma about mental illness they generate - both from people looking in but also from themselves.)