Bursting the (bubble boy's) Bubble

August 2, 2007 11:00 PM

Bursting the Bubble - an alternate look at the life of the so-called "bubble boy" David Vetter.
posted by Burhanistan (38 comments total)

Yes, it's a ten year old article but I just happened across it, and being a Houston resident at the time of his "fame" I found a resonance with his story in some way.
posted by Burhanistan at 11:00 PM on August 2, 2007

Oh, Noooo, I'm so sorry. It's the MOOPS. The correct answer is, The MOOPS.
posted by Poolio at 11:23 PM on August 2, 2007 [5 favorites]

I remember the news coverage of David, The Boy In The Bubble. He was three years younger than me and I remember the stories in the paper about his space suit, the periodic updates, and finally, the news of the transplant. When the 6 o'clock news anchor reported that David had died, she broke down in tears.
posted by fandango_matt at 11:35 PM on August 2, 2007

I grew up in the UK so this passed me by (he was a year older than me) - thanks for digging this up.
posted by forallmankind at 11:39 PM on August 2, 2007

He sounds like he was an unusually thoughtful and intelligent
child, notwithstanding his behavioral problems.

Though I think he would've gone mad if he had to go through adolescence in that bubble.
posted by aerotive at 11:43 PM on August 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

Interesting article, but mostly heartbreaking. Sad to think in some ways it sounds like he was a living science experiment. Very sad.
posted by SassHat at 12:05 AM on August 3, 2007

The PBS American Experience documentary about him was quite good. It's worth watching, if you can track it down.
posted by stefanie at 12:11 AM on August 3, 2007

Wow.

This sounds like a heartbreaking, deeply symbolic, if not somewhat implausible, plot for a novel. Shame that it actually happened.
posted by phrontist at 12:16 AM on August 3, 2007

As told by Murphy, David's story is not of triumph over adversity, but of the human cost of medicine's headlong rush toward the new.

You know, I'm not sure what to make of that sentence. The treatment of SCID is one of modern medicine's triumphs (for both BM transplantation and stem cell therapy), especially considering just how severe the disorder is if it goes untreated. It was unfortunate that David Vetter succumbed to EBV, but it's clear from the article that he hated living in the bubble, and that's what he would've had to do his entire life if they hadn't taken the risk of a relatively new therapy.
posted by kisch mokusch at 12:18 AM on August 3, 2007

kisch mokusch I think you misunderstood.


As told by Murphy, David's story is not of triumph over adversity, but of the human cost of medicine's headlong rush toward the new.

They're not talking about the decision to finally do a transplant, but rather the decision of the doctor's to support the conception of a child that would have a disorder like David's, knowing full well they did not know how to treat it yet.
posted by Defenestrator at 1:33 AM on August 3, 2007

I loved how his girlfriend used to jump her horse over his bubble. That totally rocked. Not to mention that he sure could dance.

Seriously though... I always wondered what his family thought about this scene in that movie (nicely re-enacted here). I'm thinking it might've surprised them a bit.
posted by miss lynnster at 1:34 AM on August 3, 2007

Great article. Though its heartbreaking nature was overshadowed by the fact that after reading lynnster's comment I spent 45 minutes watching various John Travolta dance clips.
posted by Roman Graves at 2:29 AM on August 3, 2007

What would they say?
posted by psmealey at 2:32 AM on August 3, 2007

"How many more [bubble boys]?" someone asked.
"Until I determined that there was no more information to be gained by such a thing," Montgomery replied, "or if the outcome was certain."

...

Dr. Montgomery stood firmly by the decision to place David in the bubble. "At the time, we were encouraged by everything we knew," he says. "If people didn't take chances, none of us would be here. Columbus would have stayed in Spain and would have been selling tortillas, because he was warned he would sail off the edge of the earth."

This guy Montgomery sounds like the quintessential mad scientist. "We're going to keep bringing doomed children into the world for the sole purpose of experimenting on them! And we'll do it for SCIENCE!"
posted by Avenger at 2:51 AM on August 3, 2007

It turned out that the screens of Katherine's bone marrow had missed the presence of Epstein-Barr, the virus that produces mononucleosis. An autopsy revealed that David's body was riddled with tumors; he died of Burkitt's lymphoma. According to Dr. Shearer, the information gleaned from David's autopsy led to the discovery that viruses can cause cancer.

Interesting post. Thanks.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 5:12 AM on August 3, 2007

Columbus would have stayed in Spain and would have been selling tortillas

No. Corn is from the New World.
posted by Meatbomb at 5:42 AM on August 3, 2007 [6 favorites]

Meatbomb, anybody who speaks Spanish must also make tortillas. It's in the constitution.

doubly ironic since Columbus was from Italy.
posted by Avenger at 5:57 AM on August 3, 2007 [1 favorite]

because he was warned he would sail off the edge of the earth

Trebly stupid because the fact that the world is round had been generally known since long before Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Some estimates place the discovery of this fact at around knowledge at about 500 b.c..

Mad scientist he may be, but he's also a dumbass.
posted by psmealey at 6:13 AM on August 3, 2007

<sub>In spite of the noise, Murphy administered tests. Asked to define a tree, David responded that it was a brown rectangle with a green oval on top. She was stunned, amazed that a three-year-old would know so much about geometry but so little about the stuff of daily life.

No, she told David, the green part was made of leaves. He replied that she was totally wrong.

To prove her point, she fetched her umbrella and went outside. As David watched through a window, she broke a small limb off a tree and brought it inside for him to examine through the plastic. "You never saw so much astonishment in your life," she remembered.</sub>

How tragic.
posted by delmoi at 6:27 AM on August 3, 2007

I remember reading an article about this in Reader's Digest written by/as told by his mother. Of course in true Reader's Digest material style, it emphasized how much David was loved and how well everybody coped (though I'm sure that was true) rather than saying anything about how hard it would have been on him.
posted by orange swan at 6:31 AM on August 3, 2007

No. Corn is from the New World.

You can make tortillas out of flour.
posted by spicynuts at 6:35 AM on August 3, 2007

thoroughly tragic...a horror. (i'm crying from that article--for him and for all of us)

I hope we're still not doing that to kids?
posted by amberglow at 6:38 AM on August 3, 2007 [1 favorite]

and i still say to this day i should be the boy in the bubble whenever my allergies are really bad--i'm going to stop saying that
posted by amberglow at 6:41 AM on August 3, 2007

I hope we're still not doing that to kids?

No, thankfully this is now curable in 90% of those who are diagnosed with it. I think this is now detectable pre-natal. Those who can't be treated are not treated and allowed a quick death or abortion.
posted by Burhanistan at 6:52 AM on August 3, 2007 [2 favorites]

He was *conceived* for the bubble? On the *hope* that maybe they might be able to cure it later? Oh, that's fucking criminal. No wonder the parents didn't want Mary Murphy's book published.
posted by mediareport at 6:57 AM on August 3, 2007 [3 favorites]

Wow, just finished the article. What a heartbreaking story. The dad was a small-town mayor in 1997 and the mom remarried a People reporter who covered the news; again, it's no wonder they didn't want this version of the story out. What a horror show for the kid - always on display, trotted out in front of the cameras for each event...just awful. I remember watching the Travolta movie when I was little, so this was really interesting. Thanks, Burhanistan.
posted by mediareport at 7:06 AM on August 3, 2007

posted by mediareport He was *conceived* for the bubble? On the *hope* that maybe they might be able to cure it later?

I think it's more likely the doctors told the Vetters something along the lines of, "Your first son died from SCIDS which is transferred through the mother's X chromosome, so if you have another son, there's a 50-50 chance he'll have SCIDS, too. But now that we know this, we can place him in a sterile environment until we develop a cure or treatment, which won't be difficult." But there's little doubt the doctors privately thought, "...and if we can't, at least we'll get some interesting research out of the experiment. Win-win!"

I don't think David was conceived for the bubble, I think the doctors encouraged the Vetters to try again by selling them on the (medically-fascinating) idea of the bubble without considering or addressing the possibility of their inability to cure him and free him.

The real question someone needs to ask those doctors is whether they'd be willing to have a child with SCIDS and let him or her spend thirteen years in a plastic bubble.

There's no denying David Vetter's condition changed the way we understand and treat disease, but the way in which we gained that knowledge was unspeakably cruel.
posted by fandango_matt at 7:22 AM on August 3, 2007

He was *conceived* for the bubble? On the *hope* that maybe they might be able to cure it later? Oh, that's fucking criminal. No wonder the parents didn't want Mary Murphy's book published.

"The Vetters were predisposed to the doctors' plan: They were anxious to have another child, especially a son to carry on the family name. As Catholics, they may have been especially swayed by Dr. Wilson, a scientist who studied germ-free environments and was also a brother in the Order of the Holy Cross."

just to point out how blatantly hypocritical the whole "culture of life" thing is. it's easy to play armchair philosopher about how many blastocysts can fit on the head of a pin, but when you actually have to make a ethical decision about life with your Order of the Holy Cross well...

"Prior to the delivery, the Vetters had arranged for a priest to be on hand to baptize their son after he'd been placed inside the bubble. Like almost everything else David would touch during the next 12 years, the holy water was sterilized."

who gives a fuck, pop out the baby, get him baptized and let God figure it out.

fuckers.
posted by geos at 7:25 AM on August 3, 2007

It's so weird how famous he was too--him, and those quintuplets--they were paraded across magazines and stuff continually all thru the 70s.
posted by amberglow at 7:32 AM on August 3, 2007

FIVE THOUSAND DOLLA!?!?
posted by autodidact at 7:32 AM on August 3, 2007

Yeah, amberglow, that's the part that really bugged me - the way the photographers would be there for every event, with David crying and everyone encouraging him to be a good boy so they could get the pictures.

The PBS site also comes out and asks, "Did they, in the end, effectively decide how to kill him?"

Sure looks that way from here.
posted by mediareport at 7:53 AM on August 3, 2007

Well, someone had to post this. Here's another take on the "Bubble Boy" legend. "Who has the remote?"
posted by Ber at 8:25 AM on August 3, 2007

Yeah, amberglow, that's the part that really bugged me - the way the photographers would be there for every event, with David crying and everyone encouraging him to be a good boy so they could get the pictures.

Yup--it's so wrong. I remember all of it vividly, along with all those quintuplet birthdays/starting school/etc--in People, tons of magazines, then the Travolta tv movie, etc...
posted by amberglow at 8:29 AM on August 3, 2007

<sub>"In February 1984, she visited David the day he'd been removed from his bubble. He was conscious and calm, and seemed to realize he was dying.

From his hospital bed, he asked that the miniblinds be raised; he wanted to see the view from his new room. But instead of the expected sunset, the window revealed only a brick wall. Murphy began to cry."</sub>

This made my soul hurt.
posted by mr.curmudgeon at 8:35 AM on August 3, 2007 [4 favorites]

Even though the Travolta clip is fiction, I think one line in it is very telling - when the other patient says he wants to get a hooker, and John immediately asks, "Aren't you afraid of germs?" That was David's entire world, the fear of germs. That poor kid spent his short life like a chameleon in a terrarium. It breaks my heart that he had to live that way because his parents were so anxious to carry on the family name. They had a healthy daughter, wasn't that enough? I think it also sent a message to the daughter - "you're OK, but we really want a boy, which is why the family is going through all this."
posted by Oriole Adams at 10:31 AM on August 3, 2007

You can make tortillas out of flour.
Actually, in Spain, this is what they call tortillas.
posted by Citizen Premier at 12:39 PM on August 3, 2007

This made my soul hurt.
posted by mr.curmudgeon

Indeed. Reading that after what he said about school, "Why school? Why did you make me learn to read? What good will it do? I won't ever be able to do anything anyway. So why? You tell me why." made me think, "Well, you see David, there's this writer by the name of Kafka..."
posted by Zack_Replica at 6:30 PM on August 3, 2007

In case of potential confusion, my comment was not meant to read 'ha ha, pretty suckky, huh guy?', but a rueful 'yes, here's one explanation of a killing joke.'
posted by Zack_Replica at 6:38 PM on August 3, 2007