Ted DeVita

Who was Ted DeVita?

Ted DeVita was a victim of severe aplastic anemia who was forced to live in a sterile hospital room for eight and a half years.

His story, along with that of Texas patient David Vetter, was used to create the 1976 made-for-TV movie The Boy in the Plastic Bubble. In the film, John Travolta played "Tod," a teenaged boy who lived in a sterile bubble due to illness. Ted was 14 when the film, unauthorized by his family, was released. In 2004, the story of Ted's life, illness, death, and the lasting impact of these events on his family was examined in a memoir by his younger sister, Elizabeth DeVita-Raeburn, entitled The Empty Room: Surviving the Loss of a Brother or Sister at Any Age.

Ted DeVita was the son of NIH oncologist and researcher Vincent T. DeVita, Jr., MD, who diagnosed his son's illness in 1972. Severe aplastic anemia is a rare disease in which the body is suddenly unable to produce new blood cells and platelets. Its victims have no effective immune system and must be protected from infection. Ted was admitted to the National Institute of Health Clinical Center. While scientists and physicians tried all known treatments for his condition, Ted was isolated in Building 10, in a "laminar airflow room." This specialized room on "13-East" had been created in 1969 to protect leukemia patients whose immune systems had been compromised by chemotherapy. Physicians hoped the sterile room and frequent blood transfusions would sustain him until he recovered spontaneously or an effective treatment was found.