In late January of 2008, The ABC show Eli Stone premiered with an episode in which the heroic lawyer, in a sudden flash of moral insight, turned his back on his previous corporate clients and turned his efforts to defending the powerless — by suing a vaccine manufacturer for causing the Autism of his client’s child. Benjamin Kruskal and Carole Allen, pediatricians on the Boston area, wrote an OpEd for The Boston Globe criticizing the choice of subject as counter-productive and potentially dangerous. Their primary concern was parents who would forego vaccinating their children for fear of the vaccines; I wrote this to propose another outcome that they failed to mention. It was not published.
31 January 2008
Ref: “Perpetrating the Autism Myth, Benjamin Kruskal and Carole Allen, 31 Jan 2008
Regarding the use of bogus Autism/vaccine concerns as the dramatic focus of ABC’s latest entry in the “noble lawyer/activist vs. evil corporation” genre:
Perhaps later in the season they can do a follow-on episode of “Eli Stone” in which the crusading hero sues another vaccine maker, this time to force them to continue making the life-saving vaccines his clients desperately need after the threat of massive awards in bogus liability lawsuits has forced them out of the vaccine business.
© Copryright 2008, Augustus P. Lowell