“Giving Babies A Chance To Survive” – The Jeffrey Modell Foundation
The world of Jeffrey Modell, the son of Fred and Vicki Modell, in 1987 was a far different world than we have today for patients with genetic Primary Immunodeficiency (PI) disorders and diseases. There were few answers, little hope and no support networks. Jeffrey and his family had nowhere to turn to get answers; no one with whom to talk and not even enough pediatricians with any real clinical experience, with these life threatening disorders. The thing is that no one really knew what a primary immunodeficiency was or how to make a precise diagnosis. They didn’t know how many different kinds of primary immunodeficiencies there were or could even imagine a world with 150 different genetic defects on over 100 genes, but there are at least that many already classified by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Primary immunodeficiencies are a broad spectrum of problems with the immune system and not just one disease. These underlying genetic Primary immunodeficiencies ,of the immune system, affect all organ systems and are as varied as there are disorders and diseases, but they all had one thing in common; they were caused by genetic defects either inherited or as a result of the in utero environment; genes replicating in the wrong way before a child was born. Primary immunodeficiencies are congenital; you can’t catch them or become infected by them; you are simply born that way.
