Buffington’s program has worked with shows including Grey’s Anatomy and ER, but had one of its greatest successes with a story line about an HIV-positive character on the daytime soap opera The Bold and Beautiful that featured information about an HIV/AIDS information hotline.
“The highest peak in callers all year was when we got 5,313 calls in a single day ... the day that Tony told his fiancee Kristen that he was HIV positive.”
Buffington acknowledges that the “huge” impact of medical dramas is just as powerful, even when story lines are unrealistic or just plain wrong.
“That’s why we’re in business, because so much of this information is inaccurate or may be outdated,” she said.
For Holtz, the most misleading health information on television comes not from medical dramas, but advertisements for prescription medications.
“Television ads are some of the most crisp and concise storytelling that exists,” he said.
“They tell this story that if you come, if you get our product, you will have a life that’s full of sunshine and butterflies and romps in the grass. It’s just purely fantasy.”
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