American Experience, 2005
In his own time, many regarded David's 12-year odyssey inside his bubble as a triumph of technology. To others, it was a bizarre experiment that exemplified medical hubris. The Boy in the Bubble is a story of medical perseverance and personal tragedy. With firsthand recollections from David's mother and the doctors, nurses, therapists, and chaplain who cared for him, as well as those who were critical of the handling of his case, this program documents the life of a little boy who became a living experiment in the fight to cure a rare disease.
Produced and Directed by: Barak Goodman and John Maggio
Written by: Barak Goodman
LA Times 4/10/06
Now documentary filmmakers Barak Goodman and John Maggio want us to consider the ethical issues involved in the case of David Vetter, the boy who spent his life inside and Orwellian-named "isolater" as he awaited a cure for his rare immune deficiency.
"The Boy in the Bubble," set for broadcast tonight as part of the American Experience series, is an even-handed look at the case, with interviews with most of the major figures, including several doctors and David's mother and footage of David himself.
Three decades later, it's still an engrossing story and Goodman and Maggio have done it justice, with some small quibbles.
Wall Street Journal 4/7/06
The boy in the bubble--subject of a famous "Seinfeld" episode, among other entertainments--arrives on the television screen again, now in a grimly contentious "American Experience" documentary of surprising vitality given the story's well-known contours.
To the credit of the filmmakers, Barak Goodman and John Maggio, their picture of events transmits a vivid sense of that optimism and eager hope with which doctors planned to preserve the life of young David Vetter, born in 1971.
The film convincingly tracks his subsequent decline from a lively child to a withdrawn one. Even the NASA-style space suit designed to allow him to walk outside and see the world ultimately couldn't provide interests sufficient to overcome his fears, mainly of germs--the mortal danger impressed on his mind since early childhood.
Chicago Tribune 4/10/06
Forget everything you think you know about the boy in the bubble.
The punch line of a famous "Seinfeld" episode, the lead character in a famous TV movie starring a young John Travolta, the subject of a Paul Simon song, that boy was a real person, not just a pop-culture touchstone.
And his story, as told in the gripping American Experience documentary "The Boy in the Bubble" (9 p.m. Monday, WTTW-Ch.11), will break your heart.
From the first moment, this low-key yet thorough film is utterly transfixing. Viewers are transported to the early '70s, when medical breakthroughs occurred every day, heroic doctors became superstars and scientific advances seemed capable of solving almost any problem.
The Boston Globe 4/10/06
I didn't recall, from my own Weekly Reader days, how horrifically sad David's life really was; it's hard, as a kid, to imagine the absence of human touch, or the notion of the world as a perpetual, deadly threat.
"The Boy in the Bubble," a documentary that premieres tonight on PBS, doesn't dwell too long on those ideas, because it doesn't have to. The footage of David, growing up in isolation and increasing self-awareness, is heartbreaking enough.
Instead, the film, by Barak Goodman and John Maggio, is a convincing indictment of medical hubris. David's doctors at Texas Children's Hospital saw the boy, from the start, as an experiment, a way to prove their hypothesized cure for his immunodeficiency disease.
Tampa Tribune 4/10/06
This poignant, carefully wrought special follows David from his birth in 1972 to his death in 1984, the struggle to find solutions, the anguish of his family and the growing interest of the media.
More than an odyssey of David's captive life, the documentary also addresses the fine line between David as patient and research subject and how his medical treatment led to an imprisonment some would later regard as a death sentence. No child has ever been reared in such isolation, said Barak Goodman, the documentary's producer.
