David Vetter - Psychological and Ethical Aspects

Psychological and Ethical Aspects

At the time of David's case, once a child was born with SCID, he would either be moved into a sterile environment, or quickly die from infection.

David came to be considered psychologically unstable due to the lack of human contact and his increasing realization of his limited prospects for a normal life. As a young child, he presented a painstakingly polite facade, but as he grew older, he appeared to become increasingly angry and depressed. He was extremely anxious about germs, and would experience repeated nightmares about the "King of Germs".

The Rev. Raymond Lawrence, the chaplain of Texas Children's Hospital at that time, 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 said that the original three doctors encouraged David's parents to conceive David so that they could have a test subject for studies, a charge which is denied by the three involved doctors.

The case raised numerous ethical questions, including whether parents with the genetic traits producing a 50% chance of SCID should have children, and whether the knowledge produced by such research justified allowing or encouraging parents to have children subject to this risk.