I'm Not a Health Official, but I Have Watched Every Episode of "Gray's Anatomy"

Every once-in-a-while a public poll is released that really gives you a sense of what's going through the heads of your fellow citizens. Unfortunately, almost every time one of those nuggets is released it just makes you shake your head. Everyone has seen at least one poll like this from the number of high school students who can pick out "Europe" on a map to the number of adults who know the name of their Congress person. You see these statistics and you think to yourself "My G-d, these are the people that are electing our leaders (i.e. determining the fate of our nation)?"

A recent AP article explained how the CDC (that's right, the Center for Disease Control) is spending money (and time) working w/ Hollywood (yes, Hollywood) to make sure that TV and Movie scripts accurately portray major public health issues. You have to read about halfway through the article to get to the part that makes you want to break your keyboard over your head:

"CDC officials make time for Hollywood meetings, because they know what’s on screen can be influential. In a 2000 CDC-sponsored survey, more than half of TV viewers said they trust health information on prime-time shows to be accurate, and about one-quarter said prime-time television is one of their top three sources of health information."

This paragraph is nonchalantly placed in the article, but if true it's pretty remarkable (even if it's not completely accurate). Half of the Americans surveyed trust the health information portrayed in a TV (i.e. not a news program -- a fictional show about, say, doctors!). Of those people, half of them list TV programs as one of the top three places they get health information. TOP THREE! Let's see. Where can I get information on my health? Doctors? Health Magazines? Specialty Web Sites (WebMD)? How about "ER"?

Truth be told, the amount that the CDC spends on this is relatively little in comparison to what is probably their total budget. It's a sad state of affairs though when an organization focused on stopping the spread of disease through out our country feels that fictional TV shows are one of the most effective mediums to communicate those messages. And one really hopes that at most a handful of Americans take health lessons from fictional characters playing doctor.