ABC TV’s The Good Doctor - 11/11/19 - Significant concerns over portrayal of primary immunodeficiencies

IDF has been alerted to the fact that the episode of The Good Doctor airing on ABC TV on Monday, November 11, 2019 will feature a storyline about a person living with a primary immunodeficiency disease (PI). While this type of exposure can lead to increased awareness of PI, sadly it appears that this show will end up being another in a long line of programs and films that have mistreated the PI community by promoting dangerous false narratives around diagnosis and treatment and have perpetuated unfair and inaccurate stereotypes that portray people living in bubbles and being labeled as ‘freaks’ who are isolated from society.

Please know that our team has reached out to the producers of the show to hopefully get an advance copy of the episode and to engage in dialogue about their thought process for featuring PI and how we might be able to turn this into a positive opportunity to raise awareness of PI in some manner.

Beyond this most recent example, our community has simply had enough of Hollywood relying on PI diseases as a convenient plot twist or punchline.

From Everything, Everything to the Seinfeld Bubble Boy Episode, the Bubble Boy comedy film in 2001 and Netflix’s recently released horror film, Eli, there are no shortage of examples of how PI has been mistreated.

We understand and actually encourage the accurate portrayal of characters with medical conditions, including PI, and those portrayals may be funny or can be scary, but the stereotyping and gross misinformation needs to stop.

Click here to see a preview of the upcoming episode of The Good Doctor. We will keep you posted on our efforts to engage with the show’s producers, but we wanted you to be aware that this was occurring and the episode is set to air this Monday. As always, feel free to share your thoughts and comments with us via our social media pages or through https://www.primaryimmune.org/ask-idf