David Vetter, The Bubble Boy

The Rev. Raymond Lawrence, the chaplain of the hospital at that time and now Director of Pastoral Care of Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, said of the situation: "The great scandal of the Bubble Boy was that he was conceived for the bubble. The team that did this didn't think through this very well. They didn't consider what would happen if they didn't find an immediate cure. They operated on the assumption that you could live to be 80 years old in a bubble, and that would be unfortunate but okay". Lawrence says that the original three doctors encouraged David's parents to conceive David just so that they could have a test subject for their studies, a charge which is denied by the three involved doctors.
A special sterilized cocoon bed was prepared for David at his birth. Less than 10 seconds after being removed from his mother's womb, David entered the plastic germ-free environment that would be his home for most of his life. Devout Catholics, the Vetters arranged for Dr. Raphael Wilson, who was also a monk, to baptize David once he had entered the bubble with sterilized holy water. The doctors had decided that a bone marrow transplant might give David's immune system a jump start; however they had expected that David's sister, Katherine, would be a match. Unfortunately, that was not the case. Now, what was set up as a temporary solution had become his home, and as he grew, they had to allocate a hospital room in which he could live. As the years went by, David moved to other environments in the hospital, each one bigger to fit him and the bubble.