Image: Jonny Lee Miller plays Eli Stone
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), a medical group of 60,000 pediatricians around the nation, is playing television producer.
The AAP is asking ABC Entertainment, producer of the new drama, Eli Stone, to cancel the show because in it, Stone, a trial attorney helps a mother win $5.2 million after convincing a jury that her son got autism from a mercury-based preservative in a vaccine.
The AAP is "alarmed that this program could lead to a tragic decline in immunization rates," said president Renée Jenkins in a letter to Anne Sweeney, president of Disney-ABC Television Group.
That letter was circulated Monday on Huffingtonpost.com.
ABC Entertainment, owned by Disney, is reminding the organization that the show is fictional and its purpose is to entertain. ABC plans to go ahead with its plans to air Eli Stone.
But the premise of the show has clearly hit a nerve.
The medical establishment has long tried to distance the use of thimerosal, a mercury based preservative that was prevalent in childhood vaccines and still present in the flu vaccine, from autism. Thousands of parents say they watched their once vibrant, healthy child suddenly and dramatically change after the series of recommended vaccines.
Amy Carson of Moms Against Mercury, tells IB News she watched her son decline after his 12 month shots.
“He had severe speech delay, motor skill delays and when I found out that mercury was in vaccines when he was four I started to have him tested for heavy metal poisoning. Through his medical testing I am able to show that he is mercury toxic. Especially from a urine porphyrin test I had done in France, that shows he still has mercury in his body,” she says.
Jenkins of AAP says ABC "will bear responsibility for the needless suffering and potential deaths of children from parents' decisions not to immunize based on the content of the episode."
The man who posted the Huffington Post blog, David Kirby, has written the book on autism-thimosal, literally.
Evidence of Harm: Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic: A Medical Controversy contains convincing citations and cites some of his research in the Huffington Post column.
He tells USA Today the letter to ABC, "borders on near-hysteria over a fictional television entertainment."
"I don't have all the answers," he adds in an interview, "and my job is to keep asking questions. Definitely the jury is very much out" on any autism-vaccine link.
American Academy of Pediatrics does not believe the jury is out and that no studies have proven a link.
The creators of the show, Greg Berlanti and Marc Guggenheim actually say they believe in vaccinations and don’t believe parents will be frightened away from having their children vaccinated. Berlanti says, "We hope that people do watch the episode and draw their own conclusions."
As a compromise, ABC will refer viewers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at the end of the show.
Eli Stone’s premiere episode airs Thursday night and there is nothing like a controversy to spark high ratings. #