Kids get diseases like lupus, too. As researchers hunt better treatments, this camp brings joy

A doctor advising ... sleepaway camp? That’s how a 12-year-old diagnosed with lupus found himself laughing on a high-ropes course as fellow campers hoisted him into the air.

“It’s really fun,” said Dylan Aristy Mota, thrilled that he got a chance at the rite of childhood — thanks to doctors reassuring his mom that they'd be at this upstate New York camp, too. Dylan felt good knowing if “anything else pops up, they can catch it faster than if we had to wait til we got home.”

It may sound surprising but diseases like lupus, myositis and some forms of arthritis — when your immune system attacks your body instead of protecting it — don't just strike adults. With the exception of Type 1 diabetes, these autoimmune diseases are more rare in kids but they do happen.

People often ask, “Can kids have arthritis? Can kids have lupus?” said Dr. Natalia Vasquez-Canizares, a pediatric rheumatologist at Children’s Hospital at Montefiore, which partnered with Frost Valley YMCA last summer so some of those youngsters could try a traditional sleepaway camp despite a strict medicine schedule and nervous parents.

“Imagine for an adult, it’s difficult. If you have that disease since you’re young, it’s very difficult to, you know, cope with,” she said.

The younger that someone is when certain illnesses hit, especially before puberty, the more severe symptoms may be. And while genes can make people of any age more vulnerable to autoimmune conditions, usually it takes other factors that stress the immune system, such as infections, to cause the disease to develop.

But genes are more to blame when disease strikes early in life, said Dr. Laura Lewandowski of the National Institutes of Health who helps lead international research into genetic changes that fuel childhood lupus.

Symptoms among children can be sneaky and hard to pinpoint. Rather than expressing joint pain, a very young child might walk with a limp or regress to crawling, Vasquez-Canizares said.

“Before, I looked like everybody else, like normal,” Dylan said. Then, “my face turned like the bright pink, and it started to like get more and more red."

His family thought it must be allergies, and Dylan recalled many doctor appointments before being diagnosed with lupus last January.

Treatment has unique challenges, too. Medicines that tamp down symptoms do so by suppressing young immune systems — just as they’re learning to fend off germs. They can also can affect whether kids build strong bones.

But there are promising treatments in development. Seattle Children’s Hospital recently opened the first clinical trial of what’s called CAR-T therapy for pediatric lupus. Those “living drugs” are made by reprogramming some of patients’ own immune soldiers, T cells, to find and kill another type, B cells, that can run amok. Tests in adults with lupus and a growing list of other autoimmune diseases are showing early promise, putting some people in long-term, drug-free remission.

And occasionally a mother's autoimmune disease can harm her child, such as a rare fetal heart defect that requires a lifelong pacemaker if the baby survives. Dr. Jill Buyon at NYU Langone Health is studying how to block that defect — and just reported a healthy girl born to a mom with mild lupus.

“This is a rare example where we know the exact point in time at which this is going to happen," allowing a chance at prevention, said Dr. Philip Carlucci, an NYU rheumatology fellow and study co-author.

What happens: A kind of antibody, found in lupus, Sjögren’s and certain other autoimmune diseases, can damage the heart's ability to beat properly if enough crosses the placenta during key cardiac development. Some treatments can lower but not eliminate the risk. Buyon's team is testing if a drug used to treat a different autoimmune disease could better shield the fetus.

Kelsey Kim jumped at the experimental treatment in her last pregnancy, “partly in the hopes of saving my own baby and partly in the hopes of saving other people’s babies and saving them from the pain that I had experienced.”

Her first daughter was born healthy although doctors didn't mention the baby's temporary lupus-related rash was a warning that future pregnancies might be at risk. Kim then lost a son to congenital heart block at 22 weeks of pregnancy. Her second daughter's heart sustained milder damage, and she's now a thriving 2-year-old thanks to a pacemaker.

A third daughter was born healthy in June after Kim got the experimental drug in weekly visits, spanning about three months, to NYU from her northern Virginia home. A single case isn't proof, and Buyon has NIH funding to start a clinical trial for other high-risk pregnancies soon.

Back at the New York sleepaway camp, the goal was some normalcy for kids ruled by strict medication schedules that can make it difficult to be away from family.

“I do kind of get to forget about it,” Ethan Blanchfield-Killeen, 11, said of the form of juvenile idiopathic arthritis — similar to rheumatoid arthritis in adults — that can leave his joints stiff and achy.

One day a doctor examined his hands at camp. Another day, he was running across the lawn splattered in a fierce game of paint tag.

“Just seeing them in a different perspective” than the sterile doctor’s office “almost brings tears to my eyes,” said Vasquez-Canizares, the Montefiore rheumatologist.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Dylan Aristy Mota, 12, of New York City, who has lupus, walks out of the water doing an evening swim at the Frost Valley YMCA sleepaway camp in Claryville, N.Y., Wednesday, July 30, 2025. The camp partnered with Children's Hospital at Montefiore so kids with autoimmune diseases could attend for the first time. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Dr. Natalia Vasquez-Canizares, right, examines Ethan Blanchfield-Killeen, 11, of Yonkers, N.Y., who has a form of juvenile idiopathic arthritis, at the Frost Valley YMCA sleepaway camp in Claryville, N.Y., Thursday, July 31, 2025. The camp partnered with Children's Hospital at Montefiore so kids with autoimmune diseases could attend for the first time. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Dylan Aristy Mota, 12, of New York City, who has lupus, is hoisted in the air by fellow campers during an activity at the Frost Valley YMCA sleepaway camp in Claryville, N.Y., Wednesday, July 30, 2025. The camp partnered with Children's Hospital at Montefiore so kids with autoimmune diseases could attend for the first time. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Ethan Blanchfield-Killeen, 11, center right, of Yonkers, N.Y., who has a form of juvenile idiopathic arthritis, plays a game of paint tag at the Frost Valley YMCA sleepaway camp in Claryville, N.Y., Wednesday, July 30, 2025. The camp partnered with Children's Hospital at Montefiore so kids with autoimmune diseases could attend for the first time. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Dylan Aristy Mota, 12, of New York City, who has lupus, plays a game of Gaga Ball with fellow campers at the Frost Valley YMCA sleepaway camp in Claryville, N.Y., Wednesday, July 30, 2025. The camp partnered with Children's Hospital at Montefiore so kids with autoimmune diseases could attend for the first time. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Launch preparations have begun for the Artemis II mission, NASA’s planned lunar fly-around by four astronauts that will be the first moon trip in 53 years.

Tensions were high as hydrogen fuel started flowing into the rocket hours ahead of the planned launch. Dangerous hydrogen leaks erupted during a countdown test earlier this year, forcing a lengthy flight delay.

The launch team needs to load more than 700,000 gallons of fuel (2.6 million liters) into the 32-story Space Launch System rocket on the pad before the Artemis II crew can board.

The 32-story Space Launch System rocket is poised to blast off Wednesday evening with a two-hour launch window beginning at 6:24 p.m. EDT at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Artemis astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen will be on board. They’ll hurtle several thousand miles beyond the moon, hang a U-turn and then come straight back. No circling around the moon, no stopping for a moonwalk — just a quick out-and-back lasting less than 10 days. NASA promises more boot prints in the gray lunar dust, but not before a couple practice missions.

Unlike the Apollo missions that sent astronauts to the moonfrom 1968 through 1972, Artemis’ debut crew includes a woman, a person of color and a Canadian citizen.

Artemis II is the opening shot of NASA’s grand plans for a permanent moon base. The space program is aiming for a moon landing near the lunar south pole in 2028.

The Latest:

The wind is picking up at Cape Canaveral, more clouds are appearing and rain is expected in about two hours. But there is no lightning threat, NASA says, and there’s still an 80% chance the weather will be good enough to launch.

L-minus tracks the overall time to liftoff, counting down the days, hours and minutes away before the planned blastoff. It doesn’t include built-in holds, or pauses — that’s T-minus time.

The T-minus countdown in the final 10 minutes is where nerves tense up and hearts start pounding. Automated software kicks off a series of highly choreographed milestones. During this period, the clock can be stopped if a problem is spotted and restarted if it’s fixed in time.

T-0 is the moment of liftoff — zero — when the boosters ignite and the rocket begins its journey.

NASA has a narrow time frame each month to fly to the moon.

The Earth and moon must be aligned just so to achieve the proper trajectory for the mission. In any given month, there’s only about a week when Artemis II astronauts can lift off.

The Orion capsule needs to get a check of its life-support and other systems in near-Earth orbit. If that goes well, Orion will fire its main engine to hurtle toward the moon, taking advantage of the moon and Earth’s gravity to get there and back in a slingshot maneuver that requires little if any fuel.

Orion also needs sunlight for power and can’t be in darkness for more than 90 minutes at a time. Plus NASA wants to minimize heating during reentry at flight’s end.

The latest launch window runs through April 6. The next opportunity opens on April 30.

The hydrogen tank of the rocket’s core stage is 100% filled. NASA said no significant leaks have been observed so far in fueling. It was hydrogen leaks that prevented the rocket from flying in February.

The alarm clocks just went off in Kennedy Space Center’s crew quarters.

That means it’s rise and shine for the three Americans and one Canadian who are about to become the first lunar visitors in more than 53 years.

They have a long day ahead of them, whether they launch or not.

After breakfast, they’ll start suiting up. NASA’s launch window opens at 6:24 p.m. and lasts a full two hours.

Launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson is wearing green as are many of the controllers alongside her in the firing room.

Green represents “go” for NASA, a color symbolizing good luck.

The team is monitoring the fueling of the 322-foot moon rocket, set to blast off Wednesday evening.

A plush toy named Rise will ride with the Artemis II astronauts around the moon, carrying the names of more than 5.6 million people.

Rise is what’s known as a zero gravity indicator, which gives the astronauts a visual cue of when they reach space.

The design was inspired by the iconic “Earthrise” photo during Apollo 8, showing the planet as a shadowed blue marble from space in 1968.

Rise was selected from more than 2,600 contest submissions. It was designed by Lucas Ye of California.

Commander Reid Wiseman and his crew tucked a small memory card into Rise before the toy was loaded into the Orion capsule. The card bears the names of all those who signed up with NASA to vicariously tag along on the nearly 10-day journey.

“Zipping that little pocket on the bottom of Rise was kind of the moment that put it all together for me,” Wiseman said. “We are going for all and by all. It’s time to fly.”

NASA is fueling the new rocket that will send four astronauts to the moon.

Launch teams have begun pumping more than 700,000 gallons (2.6 million liters) of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen into the Space Launch System rocket at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

It’s the latest milestone in the two-day countdown that kicked off on Monday when launch controllers reported to duty.

It will take at least four hours to fully load the rocket before astronauts climb aboard for humanity’s first flight to the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972.

The two-hour launch window opens at 6:24 p.m. EDT.

▶ Read more about Apollo vs. Artemis

The Americans who blazed the trail to the moon more than half a century ago were white men chosen for their military test pilot experience.

The Artemis II crew includes a woman, a person of color and a Canadian, products of a more diversified astronaut corps.

▶ Read more about Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Jeremy Hansen and Reid Wiseman

NASA's Artermis II moon rocket sits on Launch Pad 39-B at the Kennedy Space Center hours ahead of planned liftoff Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

NASA's Artermis II moon rocket sits on Launch Pad 39-B at the Kennedy Space Center hours ahead of a planned launch attempt Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

Photographers set up remote cameras near NASA's Artermis II moon rocket on Launch Pad 39-B just before sunrise at the Kennedy Space Center Tuesday, March 31, 2026, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)