Bubble boyIn 1984, a 12-year-old boy publicly identified only as “David,”born without immunity to disease, touched his mother for the first time after he was removed from a plastic “bubble.”He died two weeks later on 22 Feb 1984. He had lived since birth in this protective, germ-free environment since birth at Texas Children's Hospital, Houston. Born with a rare disorder called severe combined immune deficiency, or SCID, David Vetter lacked T-cells. In the 18 Feb 1999 New England Journal of Medicine, Duke University researchers reported that early treatment with bone marrow from a parent or sibling can now save most SCID patients. After a few months, the transplanted marrow stem cells - precursors to blood cells - evolve and become the patient's own T-cells. |
