David Vetter

David Joseph Vetter III (September 21, 1971–February 22, 1984) was a boy from Houston, Texas who suffered from a rare genetic disease now known as Severe Combined Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Forced to live in a sterile environment, he became popular with the media as the boy in the plastic bubble.

Death

After many years, David's situation became unbearable. He was a full-grown boy and the small expectations for finding a cure were still the same as when he was a baby. Doctors feared that as a teenager he would become even more unpredictable and uncontrollable. The U.S. government spoke about cutting the research funding as it showed no results and there was a growing debate over the ethics of that experiment, with public opinion becoming less supportive of the project. Everyone felt uneasy with the situation and agreed that he simply could not be kept there forever.

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His doctors, Murphy, Feigin and Shearer, suggested to place him on a regime of gamma globulin and antibiotics and remove him from the bubble, but since that almost certainly would have condemned him to death, his parents refused. Then they decided to perform a bone marrow transplant, the marrow being donated by his sister Katherine. A few months after the operation, David started having diarrhea, fever and severe vomiting. These symptoms led to David being taken out of the bubble.

Related Topics:
Gamma globulin - Antibiotics - Bone marrow - Diarrhea - Fever - Vomit

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David left his bubble for the first time in 1984. The first person he ever hugged was his nurse and old friend, Mrs. Murphy. She decided to open the window so he would have a chance of seeing the blue sky and maybe feel a breath of fresh air. But she cried; all they saw was a concrete wall that stood for the bleakness of the future situation.

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David died 15 days later of Burkitt's lymphoma, caused by an unscreened virus, Epstein-Barr, in his newly-transplanted bone marrow.

Related Topics:
Burkitt's lymphoma - Epstein-Barr

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