Many long-running shows on television have currently found themselves grappling with an anti-vaccination mandate.
“General Hospital,” for example, recently had the characters Liv Jerome (Tonja Walker) and Sonny Corinthos (Maurice Benard) promote fear of a medically unnecessary medical health bill for all their Twitter followers.
Their reason?
“The more I learn about the medical bill thing… (Hahahahahahaha). I must be wrong!! We’ve never heard about it before!”
We love Liv and Sonny as well as the rest of their characters on the show, but this makes us cringe. Liv encourages vaccine fears and hears about medical bills, but the health of her fictional loved ones isn’t at risk because of something that people disagree about.
“General Hospital” isn’t the only show in trouble with old-school values. All of the “Glee” characters vehemently oppose vaccination on the show and on the series-ending “crossover episode” between “Glee” and “The New Normal,” transgender actress Laverne Cox called for the upcoming special to be shot in Spanish because of fears about vaccinations (we completely understand that, too).
Perhaps “General Hospital” creator Frank Valentini and company will learn from the experience. Either way, we’ll keep you posted.