AAFP Urges ABC to Cancel Show With Misleading Info About Vaccines, Autism

The controversy about whether autism is linked to childhood exposure to thimerosal-containing vaccines might get hotter this week when a new TV drama airs its first episode. That's despite solid evidence disputing any such tie.

The AAFP is asking ABC to cancel the premiere episode of the legal drama Eli Stone, which will air Jan. 31 at 10 p.m. EST/9 p.m. CST. A synopsis of the episode in a Jan. 23 New York Times story describes the episode this way: "The drama … centers on a lawyer who begins having visions that cause him to question his life's work defending large corporations, including a pharmaceutical company that makes vaccines. The title character of Eli Stone, adopting the message of his visions to fight for the little guy, takes his first case: suing his former client on behalf of the mother of an autistic child who believes a mercury-based preservative in a vaccine caused her son's autism."

In the show, the jury awards the mother $5.2 million.

"We urge ABC to cancel this episode, as it transmits misinformation about the safety of life-saving vaccines given to infants and children," says a Jan. 30 AAFP statement by AAFP President Jim King, M.D., of Selmer, Tenn., regarding the new series episode. King also sent a letter to Anne Sweeney, president of Disney-ABC Television Group, echoing these concerns.

"Scientific data overwhelmingly show that there is no association between vaccines and autism," King says in the statement, pointing out that based on the misinformation in the TV show, parents may decide to "forgo life-saving, safe and effective vaccinations for their children due to the show's false premise that vaccines cause autism."

A recent study in the Archives of General Psychiatry failed to establish a causal link between thimerosal, which contains ethylmercury, and autism. The study showed that autism rates in California have continued to rise, even though thimerosal has been removed from all children's vaccines except for some influenza vaccines.

ABC has said it plans to broadcast the episode without changes but will run a disclaimer at the start, saying the show is fictional. At the end, a message will refer viewers to a CDC Web site for information about autism.

But the script is "riddled with misinformation about the safety of routinely given childhood vaccines," says Deborah Wexler, M.D., executive director of the Immunization Action Coalition. The coalition has urged ABC to cancel the episode, as have the American Academy of Pediatrics and the AMA, because of concerns that parents will choose to not vaccinate their children, resulting in illness, hospitalizations and some deaths.

King points out in the statement that this situation arose in the United Kingdom when "erroneous" reports linked the measles-mumps-rubella, or MMR, vaccine to autism, resulting in "a decline in vaccination and the worst outbreak of measles in two decades. The ensuing deaths and hospitalizations of several non-immunized children could have been prevented in this instance."