AMERICANS more than just \o7believe\f7 the health information they get from fictional television shows. Spurred by what they see on shows like "ER" or "The Bold and the Beautiful," surveys suggest, they take action. They go to the doctor. They tell a friend to have that cough checked. They ask a lover to use a condom.
Fans develop trusting relationships with the characters who come into their homes each week, and industry insiders can't betray that trust. "I'm aware of the number of people who are paying attention to the facts around the fiction," says Jan Nash, executive producer of "Without a Trace." Thanks in part to the Internet, where health sites consistently rank at the top of those most visited, more and more viewers know when something doesn't ring true.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Tuesday November 14, 2006 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 3 inches; 99 words Type of Material: Correction
Medicine on TV: An article in the Monday Health section on television's medical milestones said that the "George Lopez" show received an award from USC's Hollywood Health and Society for its realistic portrayal of teen sexuality concerns. The society is actually a partnership of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Cancer Institute and the USC Annenberg School's Norman Lear Center. Also in the article, Bea Arthur's character Maude was described as 40 years old. The character was 47 at the time of the abortion episode mentioned. The show "Dr. Kildare" was misspelled as "Dr. Kildaire."
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Thursday November 16, 2006 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 36 words Type of Material: Correction
Medicine on TV: An article in Monday's Health section about medical issues on television transposed the name of an organization of health advocates. The correct name is Entertainment Resource Professionals Assn., not Entertainment Professionals Resource Assn.
They're getting a lot of chances to make such calls. Science is invading scripts. Disease is increasingly a backdrop to plots. The woes of the nation's healthcare system are punch lines. Heroic characters have mental diseases or incurable neurological disorders.
And behind the scenes, a body of communications research and an eager network of health and policy advocates are working with writers and producers to get the facts right. The shows milking medicine for back stories or main plot lines aren't limited to the medical genre such as "ER," "Grey's Anatomy" or "Scrubs." Sick, damaged or dying characters are showing up in shows about crime, politics, the legal profession, or wacky families and friends.
But seeing how profoundly true prime-time television can be was a shock, nonetheless, for Robert T. Brennan, a statistician at the Harvard School of Medicine and his daughter, Emma Brennan-Wydra, 13. On Jan. 3, 2006, they thought the night was winding down like hundreds of others, just another evening of TV viewing in their Somerville, Mass., home. It was 10 p.m., and Emma, a devotee of "Law & Order," was curled up watching the episode "Infected" with her father. "No popcorn. Nothing special, just uneventful viewing," says Brennan.
Little did they know, within their pajama-clad coziness on the other side of the country, that they were about to get an insider's glimpse into one of the latest trends in Hollywood.
Brennan and his daughter sat, mesmerized as the crime drama got closer and closer to home. It was about a grammar school-aged boy who, after seeing his mother shot to death, killed her murderer and went on trial as an adult.
