Space race advances in technology benefited David Vetter throughout his short life. In fact, NASA engineers had built the isolators that kept the young boy's environment germ-free. Then, in 1977, NASA made the five-year-old a custom-made, $50,000 spacesuit. The Mobile Biological Isolation System, which came with a 54-page user's manual, would allow Vetter to leave his plastic bubble for the first time.
In the late 1970s, residents of Love Canal in Niagara Falls, NY discovered their neighborhood had been built on a former chemical waste dump. Housewives activated to create a grassroots movement that galvanized the landmark Superfund Bill.
Explore what happened when the small Mississippi town of Leland integrated its public schools in 1970. Told through the remembrances of students, teachers and parents, the film shows how the town – and America – were transformed.
Doctors explained that if the Vetters had another boy, there was a fifty percent likelihood that he would also be afflicted with SCID. Amniocentesis determined that the fetus was indeed male, and the Vetters, devout Catholics, decided to proceed with the pregnancy, albeit with extraordinary measures prepared for the birth.