Okay...now my brother has truly hit the pinnacle...he is now officially VERY HARD TO LIVE WITH. The reason? He is some guy sited in a (soon to be) published scientific article. It looks like his pre-accident research actually made a little bit of sense (go figure). Here is the email that Dr. Kadin (who Sam worked with at Harvard) sent my sister:
"I am happy to report that I believe I have found way to bring Sam's study of microchimerism to light. In an analysis of ourLyP registry data, I found an interesting difference in the incidence of LyP in adult women and children predominately boys. From this observation, I postulate a possible multifactorial pathogensis (causes) of LyP. One of these causes might be microchimerism in females as has been proposed for some other immune mediated diseases. In this way, I think it is possible to suggest that Sam's study has some significance even though we have not been able to confirm this in the past two years. I am attaching a draft of the manuscript I intent to send to the Journal of Investigative Dermatology, probably as a letter to the editor, since we do not have anything more than a hypothesis at this time. Please inform Sam and your parents of my plan which I assume should make them happy. Thanks very much,
(Dr.) Marshall Kadin"
So, thank you Dr. Kadin. Now my brother will be absolutely impossible. His cranium will be so inflated he will never be able to fit through any sort of doorway. He will be sited in a scientific article--while the other people sited will have the title "Dr.", I guess maybe Sam's title might be "regular dude" or "smart kid" or maybe "the annoying guy that wouldn't stop talking about LyP" (ex: Dr. Kadin and SK. [smartkid] Howell discovered that...). But, on the bright side, this might actually contribute to finding an effective treatment (or cure) to Heath's disease...just like Sam promised he would do when he was 15 years old. Crazy.
P.S. The references to the Oz pictures do make sense. Think about it. The Wicked Witch, a flying monkey and Glenda the Good Witch. It is like the movie was created JUST to describe the Howell siblings. Or maybe I'm just bitter and jealous because my siblings are getting all the LyP research attention and, as an act of revenge, I decided to brand my brother and sister a MONKEY and a WITCH. Hmmm...don't know, rabbit. Could be, peanut. Ha. The world will never know.