“We cannot forget the stories of individuals who are no longer with us.”
David Vetter
1972 –
1984
He ate, played and learned like any other kid. But David Vetter’s life unfolded in a series of unusual environments: plastic, bubblelike enclosures that protected him from germs. He had severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID), and even a seemingly harmless germ could kill him. David, who lived in Texas, wasn’t supposed to grow up in isolation. But while doctors waited for a cure, they decided to keep him in a sterile environment.
During his long confinement, medical technology progressed. But an experimental bone marrow transplant from his sister was David’s death sentence. Undetected Epstein-Barr virus in her marrow triggered lymphoma. He died of the cancer in 1984 at age 12.
Because he was brought up in a sterile environment, his death allowed researchers to confirm a long-standing hypothesis that Epstein-Barr can cause cancer. Today, David’s medical records and personal papers are held by the Smithsonian Institution