From Media Village

LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT
RETRO
10-28-2008 10:00PM
11-01-2008 10:00PM

DOCTOR MELINDA WARNER’S (TAMARA TUNIE) EXPERTISE COMES INTO PLAY WHEN HOMEOPATHIC DOCTOR GIDEON HUTTON (GUEST STAR MARTIN MULL) GOES ON TRIAL FOR THE DEATH OF A YOUNG GIRL WITH AIDS.

Detectives Elliot Stabler (Chris Meloni) and Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) find themselves in unfamiliar territory when Doctor Raye Massey (Donna Murphy) calls them in to investigate the case of a baby infected with AIDS. The detectives enlist the help of Dr. Melinda Warner (Tamara Tunie), a member of an AIDS surveillance team along with Dr. Massey. While Dr. Warner investigates the baby’s medical case, Detectives Stabler and Benson discover that the baby had been prescribed ineffective vitamins by Doctor Gideon Hutton (guest star Martin Mull), who runs a “voodoo” medical practice. After the detectives probe for more answers, similar cases of mistreated AIDS surface, such as the death of Susan Ross’ (guest star Paula Malcomson) daughter. Her 18-year-old son Tommy Ross (guest star Aidan Mitchell) also gets pulled into the case, forcing him to decide whether to take on his mother’s belief in homeopathic medicine or fight against it. With Dr. Warner’s medical research and testimony, the case calls the ethics of Dr. Hutton’s practices into question. Also starring: Richard Belzer (Detective John Much), Dann Florek (Captain Donald Cragen), Ice-T (Detective Odafin Tutuola), Michaela McManus (A.D.A Kim Greylek), Tamara Tunie (Dr. Melinda Warner), and B.D. Wong (Dr. George Huang).

Show Cast: Chris Meloni, Mariska Hargitay, Dann Florek, Richard Belzer, Ice T, Tamara Tunie, Michaela McManus

I am concerned that the upcoming show tomorrow night (October 28th) is providing mis-information on homeopathic medicine. The TV Guide describes this show as: "Benson and Stabler seek Warner's help while investigating a case of a baby with AIDS, and soon the investigation points them toward a homeopathic doctor (Martin Mull) with questionable ethics who had prescribed ineffective vitamins for the baby." It seems that the writer for THIS show is confusing homeopathic medicine with vitamins, when, in fact, these are TWO different types of treatment. "Homeopathy" is not the same as vitamins, and in fact, they are very different. England's Royal Family has been under the care of a homeopathic doctor since the 1830s, and 11 U.S. Presidents, 7 popes, and innumerable world leaders, literary greats, sports superstars, corporate leaders, and world-class physicians and scientists who used and/or advocated for homeopathy during the past 200 years. Please do not confuse homeopathy with vitamins, herbs, or nutrition. It is a different system and has an international and historical stature that is worthy of attention and respect.

It is painfully obvious that the writers for Law and Order have no idea what homeopathy is or isn't. For over two hundred years homeopaths have treated people with microdoses of various substances to stimulate their innate ability to heal, not vitamins and not voodoo. It's too bad the writers feel they must distort a true healing modality to scare the public, try scaring them with the truth about Modern Medicine instead, it is truly scary.

I think it would be wiser in the future to first watch the episode before saying what the writers do and do not know about the topic presented. Small blurbs and paragraph synoposis don't tell the whole story. Perhaps it was the phrasing that was incorrect and not the actual topic.

Now, I won't claim that I know if the writers did get it all right or not, but after watching the episode I just have to say that sometimes it's difficult to see how some people come to the conclusions they do. I can't imagine denying something that has recorded proof, records, and scientific fact (HIV/AIDS, Holocaust.) It's hard to deny how deadly AIDS virus is. I was so sad that Susan's disbelief cost her not only her life but her daughter's and perhaps even her son's.

I thought the point *was* that the doctor claimed to be a homeopathic doctor, when in reality, he was a quack. I didn't interpret it as being disparaging of homeopathy as a whole. I think people need to remember that just because a character in the show happens to be labeled a certain way does not mean that he or she is representative of that entire sub-section of the population.

The sad thing is, there are people in the world who believe that HIV can be cured by herbs and vitamins. I'm a med student, and we actually just recently read cases from some villages in Africa (I think it was South Africa, but don't quote me on that!) where HIV-positive patients were given herbal remedies and then declared "cured". It's disturbing.

I can't fault the writers for their portrayal of the doctor. They dropped the ball, however, on the courtroom scene. I ranted about it on another forum so I won't repeat it here, but suffice it to say, Tuesday nights are no longer the highlight of my work week. :-(

What is hard to deny is the fact that the drug companies basically wrote this weeks script! That was the biggest witch hunt and misinformation I have seen yet on prime time TV. I have watched SVU since its inception and this was my last episode. I am tired of all the political agendas and Big Pharma ads being overtly slipped into a script of what was once a truly great drama. NBC must really think that the American public are so dumbed down that they can wrap up a drug companies agenda inside an hour episode of a police drama...pathetic!

In 1997 JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, came out and said that over 100,000 Americans die each year from legal prescriptions drugs making it the # 4 killer in the U.S. That was 1997. Could you imagine what those numbers look like today?

I am totally blown away by the fear propaganda tonight on Law and Order SVU. Network television has reached an all-time low. Tonight is the first time I've watched this show because my wife was calling me to check out the topic. Low and behold they are demonizing doctors and people who don't buy into the medical industries high priced drugs and procedures calling them everything from wackos, racists, murderers, religious nutjobs and criminals who should have their children taken away from them and who should be locked away in a 7 x 10 cage. I am shaking right now with anger at all the false information pushed by this episode which looked more like a drug advertisement for AIDS drugs. How much did the drug companies pay you guys to do this fear-mongering advertisement anyway?

The actors and everyone who participated in this show should be completely ashamed of themselves. I hope their families shun them for this because it was truly sick what they participated in. To want to force medications and medical procedures on a public who doesn't want it is criminal. Please spare us with how much the pharmaceutical industry care's about mine or anyone else's welfare. If you believe that, you my friend are an idiot and you may have drank a bit too much of the pharmaceutical grade Koolaid.

You have to wonder what's next for the shameless pharmaceutical and medical industrial complex? Are you guys intending on going from country to country with your meds and scalpels and put everyone in jail who refuses them? Oh my bad, I forgot you guys are already doing that in some places. There are some truly sick people in this world and I don't mean those with physical ailments it's some of those peddling "treatments".

I really do pity everyone who participated in this episode and I hope to never see this type of propaganda on television again. This episode showed that the characters cared so much that they threw an alternative medical doctor in jail, tried to imprison the mother for murder, caused her to have a seizure and die, took away her kid, imprisoned the kid, then tried to force him on medications he didn't want. When that failed they lied to him that he would die if he didn't take Big Pharma's medicine. If that ain't caring then I don't know what is!

The overacting and plain old bad acting involved in this episode made me think though. Do they really buy this propaganda themselves or are they being coerced to do this otherwise they might be out of a job. Is that why they did such a terrible job of acting? Tell me what you think friends. Be brave, speak up.

I am seriously concerned with this episode. I love this show and find it hard to turn my back on the show, but I am close. Seriously, if you have a farfetched story line, that's fine, but this one was just off the wall. I know little about homeopathic medicine, if anything. But what I do know is the science of HIV. I'm not going to lie, I am a little offended about what they presented in this story about peoples' beliefs about HIV/AIDS. From the beginning, this episode had completely farfetched and unbelievable facts about what HIV does and how it works.

This episode truly, truly disturbed me. As far as I know, they do have someone who knows something about medicine working on/producing this show. I personally expect better.


And another thing, if a person is so far gone with actual AIDS, I find it hard to believe they had an allergic reaction to something (seeing as how an allergic reaction is pretty much controlled by the cells that HIV infects). I am still early in my learning of medicine and immunology, but as far as I can think at this point, if your helper T cells are eliminated by something like HIV (to the point where you have AIDS) then you are going to have a pretty tough time mounting an allergic reaction to something.

I had several problems with this episode. First, the producers chose to describe this segment in the TV Guide and all other places as a "homeopathic doctor" have "questionable ethics" in treating a child with AIDS with vitamins. As it turned out, there was not a single mention or reference to the doctor being a "homeopathic doctor." For the record, IF he was a homeopathic doctor, he would have prescribed a homeopathic medicine, not vitamins (vitamins are "nutritional supplements," while homeopathic medicines are totally different and are legally considered "drugs" (though because they are so safe, they are over-the-counter drugs that do not require a doctor's prescription).

One historical note of fact: Homeopathic medicine became extremely popular in the 19th century in Europe and the USA primarily due to the impressive successes that it experienced in treating the many infectious disease epidemics that raged during that time. Today, it is also being used to treat people with various infectious disease, even AIDS. A leading conventional AIDS researcher presented this new study at the International AIDS Conference in August 2008: http://www.aids2008.org/Pag/Abstracts.aspx?AID=15800

Homeopathic doctors are not AIDS deniers...it is a real disease, and most homeopaths who I know seek to practice "integrative medicine" and take the best of conventional medicine and the best of natural medicine. THIS is the future of medicine.

Just minutes ago, you removed the feedback from yesterday's episode where you depicted a homepathic doctor as a quack and sold out to "modern" medicine.

Shame on you, NBC. What is the point of a message board if you censor out the input???

Here is what they took down...let's see how long it takes for them to take this down as well. People, if you are sickened by this episode as much as the people who are posting, then call NBC switchboard and let them know! 212.664.4444 and ask to be put through to the comment line.

(An open letter to NBC regarding the 10/28/08 episode)

I feel you went over the edge on tonight's (10/28/08) SVU episode.

You may have not done so on purpose, but you alienated a very large subset of the population that actually believes in alternative medicine. By showing the homeopathic HIV/AIDS doctor as a quack, you tried to convince a lot of people that their deeply held beliefs in non-traditional medicine are inherently flawed.

I have been watching SVU for a handful of seasons and enjoy the plots and production as a whole. In last week's episode, you threw in a small shot that a "lack of fluoridated water" led to massive tooth decay from the body found in the water. That is another deeply held belief that you walked on. Fluoridated water will not prevent tooth decay, and I felt it was a misplaced and factually inaccurate piece of writing.

You may also have seen that the sounds did not match the visuals on this episode. My friends saw that the lips were moving just slightly before the words came out...not your best all-around effort on this and last week's broadcast.
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May have not done so on purpose? Please, that was the biggest attempt to make a mockery of holistic health care I have seen yet. It was a scripted ad written for and by the drug companies that have been losing big money since they have yet to produce a single, double blind placebo study that shows HIV causes AIDS. The American public deserves better than to be told what is fact that is not and to do so in such a smear was ridiculous. I have no desire to watch more Big Pharma ads on your dramas, I see enough of them on the commercial breaks and NBC should make enough money from those alone, SELL OUTS!

I would like to thank the writers for the Oct. 28th's episode about AIDS. I have an adopted cousin who was born HIV Positive, and to say that AIDS does not exist is ridiculous! This episode hit way close to home for me. To get information on important topics is a wonderful thing. I can't begin to tell you just how many of the Law and Order SVU episodes have hit close to home for me, but I am glad that this show exists! I also love the characters on there, so please don't change the cast too much.

People, if you are sickened by this episode as much as the people who are posting, then call NBC switchboard and let them know! 212.664.4444 and ask to be put through to the comment line.

I have to agree. The Internet has taken great strides in removing the strangle hold that proponents of medical health care and pharmaceutical companies have on information regarding choices available to people. It serves no good purpose to sacrifice truthfulness for entertainment.
The way Christian Science was protrayed in this episode was way off track. Why? Accurate information is so easily accessed that there's no good excuse for such misleading characterizations.
For example, christianscience.com is a good place to start.

As per the forum guidelines, posts for this episode (pro and con) have been merged into the designated episode thread rather then being left in individual threads, I have deleted no posts.

JD/Forum Moderator

i think it was a disgraceful episode. i have never seen such propaganda showcased as an episode. does aids- which is simply a syndrome of symptoms, exist? yes, but the there is no yet any evidence that there is a virus or retrovirus that causes aids. i will say they were slick the way they portray the aids desenters, a loony cult that is simply told what to believe instead of following and practicing what the evidence follows. also making an absurd connection that folks who disagree with the standard aids dogma the aids drug industry puts out are the same as those that deny the holocaust. and to complete the brainwashing, after the women dies (the climax of the episode), a pharmaceutical commercial comes on! i think it was for a diet pill, if i wasnt lazy, i would check and see if that same some company doesnt also make aids drugs, but it was ingenious! yes, i have had close family members who were supposed this have his virus or retrovirus or whatever its called, so yes it has affected me. i dont want to put their business in the streets so to speak, so i cant speak on that further. nevertheless i want to state that there is indeed a strong case to be made that aids is not what we have been led to believe, (indeed, its not about "belief" at all). however, its the sort of issue that requires the laymen to do a lot of independent study of documents and books, some that very few people like to do, a big plus for the medical/pharmecutical industry.

Yay, someone else who agrees that the way the portrayed Christian Science was way off.

I was raised and still follow Christian Science and just want to say, thanks to the writers for perpetuating the stereotype that has been hanging around with Christian Science for years. Really appreciated the random attack. While we do have our extremists, like all religions, that was a really unfair depiction. Did not see that coming and was not at all pleased with it. Apparently Summerson was right and simple research was too much to ask.

On a different note, you guys realize that there are other characters on the show besides Elliot and Olivia, right? There's Munch, Fin, Cragen, Haung... just throwing that out there. I guess I missed the point where it became Law and Order; Elliot and Olivia Unit.

I am a gay man who has been "out" in the gay community since before the word "AIDS" meant anything but a teachers assistant. I am also an aids dissident.

Perhaps the writers of the Oct 28/08 episode would kindly explain to me why the years of high death rates said to be due to hiv, are the EXACT same years that AZT monotherapy was given to every person who tested HIV positive.

Explain to me why liver failure in those who take the aids drugs is the leading cause of death in hiv positives ever since azt monotherapy was replaced with newer drugs.

Explain to me why there are 67 factors listed in scientific journals that are well proven to often cause hiv tests to show positive, including flu, flu vaccinations, herpes, hepatitis, tuberculosis, pregnancy, receptive anal sex, and on and on.

Explain to me why the hiv tests, that can be thrown off by 67 often common factors are called 99.9% accurate .

Explain to me why every gay man I know who refused the aids drugs is still alive and well, and explain why all the gays I know who took or take the aids drugs are either dead or disfigured or suffering extreme toxicities of these drugs.

And, explain why the following esteemed individuals, said what they said!

Dr. Kary Mullis, Biochemist, 1993 Nobel Prize for Chemistry:
"If there is evidence that HIV causes AIDS, there should be scientific documents which either singly or collectively demonstrate that fact, at least with a high probability. There is no such document." (Sunday Times (London) 28 nov. 1993)


Dr. Heinz Ludwig Sänger, Emeritus Professor of Molecular Biology and Virology, Max-Planck-Institutes for Biochemy, München. Robert Koch Award 1978:
"Up to today there is actually no single scientifically really convincing evidence for the existence of HIV. Not even once such a retrovirus has been isolated and purified by the methods of classical virology." (Letter to Süddeutsche Zeitung 2000)


Dr. Serge Lang, Professor of Mathematics, Yale University:
"I do not regard the causal relationship between HIV and any disease as settled. I have seen considerable evidence that highly improper statistics concerning HIV and AIDS have been passed off as science, and that top members of the scientific establishment have carelessly, if not irresponsible, joined the media in spreading misinformation about the nature of AIDS." (Yale Scientific, Fall 1994)


Dr. Harry Rubin, Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California at Berkeley:
"It is not proven that AIDS is caused by HIV infection, nor is it proven that it plays no role whatever in the syndrome." (Sunday Times (London) 3 April 1994)


Dr. Richard Strohman, Emeritus Professor of Cell Biology at the University of California at Berkeley:
"In the old days it was required that a scientist address the possibilities of proving his hypothesis wrong as well as right. Now there's none of that in standard HIV-AIDS program with all its billions of dollars." (Penthouse April 1994)


Dr. Harvey Bialy, Molecular Biologist, former editor of Bio/Technology and Nature Biotechnology:
"HIV is an ordinary retrovirus. There is nothing about this virus that is unique. Everything that is discovered about HIV has an analogue in other retroviruses that don't cause AIDS. HIV only contains a very small piece of genetic information. There's no way it can do all these elaborate things they say it does." (Spin June 1992)


Dr. Roger Cunningham, Immunologist, Microbiologist and Director of the Centre for Immunology at the State University of New York at Buffalo:
"Unfortunately, an AIDS 'establishment' seems to have formed that intends to discourage challenges to the dogma on one side and often insists on following discredited ideas on the other." (Sunday Times (London) 3 April 1994)


Dr. Gordon Stewart, Emeritus Professor of Public Health, University of Glasgow:
"AIDS is a behavioural disease. It is multifactorial, brought on by several simultaneous strains on the immune system - drugs, pharmaceutical and recreational, sexually transmitted diseases, multiple viral infections." (Spin June 1992)


Dr. Alfred Hässig, (1921-1999), former Professor of Immunology at the University of Bern, and former director Swiss Red Cross blood banks:
"The sentence of death accompanying the medical diagnosis of AIDS should be abolished." (Sunday Times (London) 3 April 1994)


Dr. Charles Thomas, former Professor of Biochemistry, Harvard and John Hopkins Universities:
"The HIV-causes-AIDS dogma represents the grandest and perhaps the most morally destructive fraud that has ever been perpetrated on young men and women of the Western world." (Sunday Times (London) 3 April 1994)


Dr. Joseph Sonnabend, New York Physician, founder of the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFAR):
"The marketing of HIV, through press releases and statements, as a killer virus causing AIDS without the need for any other factors, has so distorted research and treatment that it may have caused thousands of people to suffer and die." (Sunday times (London) 17 May 1992)


Dr. Andrew Herxheimer, Emeritus Professor of Pharmacology, UK Cochrane Centre, Oxford:
"I think zidovudine [AZT] was never really evaluated properly and that its efficacy has never been proved, but it's toxicity certainly is important. And I think it has killed a lot of people. Especially at the high doses. I personally think it not worth using alone or in combination at all." (Continuum Oct. 2000)


Dr. Etienne de Harven, Emeritus Professor of Pathology, at the University of Toronto:
"Dominated by the media, by special pressure groups and by the interests of several pharmaceutical companies, the AIDS establishment efforts to control the disease lost contact with open-minded, peer-reviewed medical science since the unproven HIV/AIDS hypothesis received 100% of the research funds while all other hypotheses were ignored." (Reappraising AIDS Nov./Dec. 1998)


Dr. Bernard Forscher, former editor of the U.S. Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences:
"The HIV hypothesis ranks with the 'bad air' theory for malaria and the 'bacterial infection' theory of beriberi and pellagra [caused by nutritional deficiencies]. It is a hoax that became a scam." (Sunday Times (London) 3 April 1994)

I doubt most of those who watched the 10/28 "Retro" episode are aware of this, but the episode they did was loosely based on a friend of mine, named Christine Maggiore, who lives in the valley. She is a well known aids dissident who wrote a book called "The Other Side Of AIDS". She also runs a dissident organization called "Alive and Well". As she was diagnosed HIV positive and is an outspoken dissident, she has been a major target for those promoting the HIV belief for years.

A couple of years ago, her 3 year old always healthy daughter EJ, came down with a touch of the flu and a mild ear infection, and for the first time in her life was given antibiotics. Unaware that the child was allergic to amoxicillin, hours later, the child turned feverish, blue and she suddenly stopped breathing (a typical allergic reaction to amoxicillin). The coroner found nothing else obvious to be the cause of death, but after a call to the coroners office by an LA Times reporter who told them the mother was HIV positive and is an "aids dissident", the chief coroner then decided to rewrite the report to say the child died of aids pneumonia, even though the autopsy slides showed no pneumonia whatsoever, and even though the hiv test done by Quest Diagnostics showed the child to be hiv negative!

Amazing what the believers in hiv will do to promote the belief, including whoever produced and wrote the 10/28 show.

http://www.lacitybeat.com/cms/story/detail..._survival/3887/

A note to me yesterday from Christine says it all:

Dear Michael,

Along with posting the episode at http://www.rethinkingaids.com, I think we need to have a point by point breakdown of the lame claims made and include facts about the me character that don't jibe with me. I notice in the three prime time TV versions of me, I am always a single mom. I believe this is because it's too hard to explain how I could have a smart and accomplished husband and yet "stupid" things happen in our family. Also, my husband tests negative after 12 years of normal, latexless relations--as does Kathleen Tyson's husband and the partners of many other "sero-diverse" couples. They have my son testing positive when in fact like my husband, he too tests negative. And of course, they never mention the fact that the coroner's office has presented no evidence that my daughter had or died of pneumonia. Rather, tissue slides the coroner's office prepared of her lungs have been used in three legal cases as negative controls for pneumonia because they so exemplify what lungs without pneumonia look like. And lastly, I am not sick or dead after close to 17 years of "living with HIV."

If they told the truth, they'd be undoing the paradigm.

Christine Maggiore

Interesting. Eh? The true stories in life are much more amazing than tv shows and movies. Anyway, the belief in HIV just seems to roll on and on fairly unchallenged, and seems to me to be herd mentality and mass paranoia, and it is very difficult to get people, including intelligent doctors and scientists, to look at any of the actual facts about it all.

LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT
RETRO
10-28-2008 10:00PM
11-01-2008 10:00PM
*****
Worse than the last season of Roseanne and season finale of Seinfeld, Law & Order: SVU continues its downward plot slide into head-shaking oblivion.

Last week's sad and sorry saga ('Retro,' Oct. 28, 2008) was the un-crowing glory -- an episode apparently penned by and for the pharmaceutical industry. Actual high(low)light: The Assistant DA declares she can obtain a search warrant because a sick mother breast-fed her child.

I notice the 'writers' also injected a corporate agenda into the discourse, by denigrating a character's theories questioning the origin of AIDS. (Oh, btw. See: Killer flu recreated in the lab 07 Oct 2004 UK Scientists have shown that tiny changes to modern flu viruses could render them as deadly as the 1918 strain which killed millions. A US team added two genes from a sample of the 1918 virus to a modern strain known to have no effect on mice. Animals exposed to this composite were dying within days of symptoms similar to those found in human victims of the 1918 pandemic.) And so, it's not exactly 'insane' to envision the US government behind an AIDS -- or avian flu -- pandemic to make billions for the pharma-terrorists. Incidentally, Indonesia won't even turn over bird flu samples to the US for fear the US will use such samples to make a bioweapon.

As I recall, L&O: SVU characters used to question mindless, overreaching authority and corporate power, and trace its roots. I see the Reichwing has brought the hammer down, and put an end to such scenarios. Moreover, the reasons that attracted viewers to the series years ago have vanished from the landscape and have been replaced by insipid plot lines in order to push so-called 'Emmy-worthy' performances by guest actors. Who cares?

Get back to the old L&O: SVU, and fast.
Cheers,
Lori R. Price
Managing Editor
Citizens For Legitimate Government
http://www.legitgov.org/

Im pissed I didnt see this episode.

I am a long time fan of the L&O series. “Retro” was a good example good research of the very important legal aspects portrayed. But the references made to Christian Science were inaccurate in the extreme. Dramatically, it was not necessary to give a name to the religious belief described but what was described was not Christian Science. It only illustrates a need for better research by the writers on religious subjects.

I am a Christian Science parent and the son of Christian Science parents and have raised two daughters. I have numerous friends you are also children of Christian Science parents and are Christian Science parents in their turn. I have known some of these people since we were children together in a Christian Science Sunday School over 50 years ago. None fit the stereotype depicted in this episode.

I was educated about HIV/AIDS by my children when they told me what they had been taught in school. From that information, I have concluded that any one abiding by the moral precepts taught in Christian Science will not be engaging in activities that would expose them to the HIV virus in the first place.

The episode imputed that Christian Science could not heal HIV/AIDS. I first heard of a Christian Science healing of in about 1971. I am sure there have many more in the intervening years. Christian Scientists do not keep statistics on the healing ministry but the healing work is recorded weekly in “The Christian Science Sentinel” and monthly in “The Christian Science Journal”. The healings are all verified before publication. Many Christian Science Reading Rooms have a complete set of these magazines since the beginning of the publications over 100 years ago. Serious researchers might wish to consult with a Christian Science Committee on Publication. There is one in every state in the USA as well as many other countries.

Christian Scientists deplore quackery in any of the healing arts just as much as the Attorney in the “Rerto” episode did.

LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT
RETRO
08-26-2009 10:00PM

DOCTOR MELINDA WARNER’S (TAMARA TUNIE) EXPERTISE COMES INTO PLAY WHEN HOMEOPATHIC DOCTOR GIDEON HUTTON (GUEST STAR MARTIN MULL) GOES ON TRIAL FOR THE DEATH OF A YOUNG GIRL WITH AIDS.

Detectives Elliot Stabler (Chris Meloni) and Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) find themselves in unfamiliar territory when Doctor Raye Massey (Donna Murphy) calls them in to investigate the case of a baby infected with AIDS. The detectives enlist the help of Dr. Melinda Warner (Tamara Tunie), a member of an AIDS surveillance team along with Dr. Massey. While Dr. Warner investigates the baby’s medical case, Detectives Stabler and Benson discover that the baby had been prescribed ineffective vitamins by Doctor Gideon Hutton (guest star Martin Mull), who runs a “voodoo” medical practice. After the detectives probe for more answers, similar cases of mistreated AIDS surface, such as the death of Susan Ross’ (guest star Paula Malcomson) daughter. Her 18-year-old son Tommy Ross (guest star Aidan Mitchell) also gets pulled into the case, forcing him to decide whether to take on his mother’s belief in homeopathic medicine or fight against it. With Dr. Warner’s medical research and testimony, the case calls the ethics of Dr. Hutton’s practices into question. Also starring: Richard Belzer (Detective John Much), Dann Florek (Captain Donald Cragen), Ice-T (Detective Odafin Tutuola), Michaela McManus (A.D.A Kim Greylek), Tamara Tunie (Dr. Melinda Warner), and B.D. Wong (Dr. George Huang).

Show Cast: Chris Meloni, Mariska Hargitay, Dann Florek, Richard Belzer, Ice T, Tamara Tunie, Michaela McManus