![whats scid whats scid](https://s3.amazonaws.com/healthtap-public/ht-staging/user_answer/reference_image/15844/topic_large/Severe_combined_immunodeficiency.jpeg)
The couple decided not to keep their son sequestered from the outside world. Any day, he could catch an illness, and, without white blood cells to fight it off, a common disease could easily turn fatal. The Modells were told that their son’s condition was a time bomb.
![whats scid whats scid](http://acronymsandslang.com/acronym_image/1252/d32e294290844dbaad76a9e18802ce6a.jpg)
While these cells normally make up only about 1% of all the cells in the blood, they are the main line of defense against viruses, bacteria and other foreign invaders. Jeffrey’s body would not manufacture white blood cells. His illness, though similar to Dawson’s, was not as perilous in the short term. Doctors discovered the baby had inherited an immune system disease called primary immune deficiency. When he was 10 months old, he began suffering from a high fever. A long campaign to add screeningĪnother couple, Vicki and Fred Modell, had not been so fortunate with their son. What she and her husband, Michael, did not realize then, what they would come to appreciate later, was that the test given to their son was actually good news. “I cried all the way through the ceremony,” Bornheimer recalls.
![whats scid whats scid](https://revcovi.com/assets/images/signs-and-symptoms_5-26.png)
The baby’s baptism went ahead that afternoon at St. Most babies with SCID died before their first birthday. Born in 1971, Vetter had a rare, usually fatal disease that crippled his immune system, leaving him so vulnerable to severe infections that he was forced to live in a sterile environment, or “plastic bubble.”Īs soon as she got off the phone, Bornheimer Googled the disease to see what Dawson was up against. Most Americans, if they’ve ever heard of the illness, likely know it by a different name: "bubble boy disease." The colloquial moniker comes from a movie, "The Boy in the Plastic Bubble," which starred John Travolta playing a child whose real name was David Vetter. In January 2008, six months before his birth, Wisconsin had become the first place in the world to screen all babies for a life-threatening illness called severe combined immunodeficiency, or SCID.