Do you remember 'Bubble Boy'? This is the story of David Vetter

If you are of a certain age you probably remember a little boy who the media dubbed "Bubble Boy." David Phillip Vetter was the first child to spend his entire life encased in a plastic bubble due to a serious illness. David had a huge impact on the world, as mentioned by the inscription on his tombstone: "He never touched the world, but the world was touched by him."

David was born in September 1971 and died in October 1984 at the age of 12 from Severe Combined Immunodeficiency (SCID), (a severe combined immunodeficiency syndrome due to adenosine deaminase deficiency).

David suffered from a serious genetic disease that destroys the immune system. That's why David Vetter had to live in a plastic bubble: to prevent viruses and bacteria from giving him infections.

The plastic bubble method was developed in the 1970s as it was the only way for affected children to survive at the time.

Pictured is another child suffering from the same disease.

David Vetter could only come out of his plastic bubble on very few occasions, such as when NASA engineers made a special space suit for him.

Photo: Wikipedia

Another moment he emerged from sterile isolation was when he underwent a bone marrow transplant. A bone marrow transplant from a compatible person was the only hope for survival. In his case, the donor was his sister.

Photo: Funeral of David Vetter

Unfortunately, the operation was not as successful as hoped. David died a few weeks later as a result of a serious infection.

Photo: David's mother on the day of his funeral.

David Vetter became a real media event because he was the first 'bubble boy' in history. The New York Time published a documentary at the time that told his story.

Photo: Youtube

David wasn't the only child who had to live in these sterile conditions: unfortunately, there have been many others like him over the years.

The story of David Vetter also inspired the cinema world. In 1976, 'The Boy In The Plastic Bubble' was released, a film directed by Randal Kleiser and starring a very young John Travolta.

The film tells the story of Tod Lubitch, a boy who was born with an illness that, like David, isolates him from the outside world. But, having learned what it's like to fall in love, he was forced to make a very difficult decision.

Major advances have been made since the 1970s, particularly since the 1990s when the first gene therapy attempts to treat SCID were made.

At that time, a therapy was being tested in Paris for the specific disease that little David was suffering from: X-linked SCID, in which the genetic defect that causes the lack of lymphocyte production is on the X chromosome and only affects men.

Unfortunately, despite the effective results, the therapy tested in Paris also had a serious side effect: the children who underwent the treatment developed leukemia after a few months. Needless to say, the experimental treatments have been suspended.

In the photo, Wilco, the child born in 2002 through the therapy of Dr. Alain Fischer was rescued in Paris.

In recent years, the therapy developed by a research group led by Luigi Naldini, director of the San Raffaele Telethon Institute in Milan, has been an important milestone in Europe.

It's called Strimvelis and is the first stem cell-based gene therapy: "Strimvelis is the result of more than 20 years of research by doctors and scientists at the San Raffaele Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy (SR-Tiget) and was first recognized by the European Medicines Agency in 2016 Life-Saving Drug Approved for a Rare, Otherwise Incurable Genetic Disease Called ADA-SCID," according to the official website of the San Raffaele Hospital.

"Strimvelis offered a future perspective to all treated patients who did not have a compatible bone marrow donor and therefore no treatment options," says the hospital's website.

San Raffele in Milan estimates that 40 ADA-SCID patients have received the therapy developed at SR-Tiget since 2000, with only one case (detected in 2020) where a treated patient developed leukemia. Administration of the drug to other patients has been temporarily suspended."