EXCLUSIVE: It doesn’t get any more ripped-from-the-headlines than this: In tonight’s episode of The Pitt, the emergency room admits a boy who’s suffering from the measles. And he’s unvaccinated.
In this exclusive clip from the penultimate episode, Dr. Robby (Noah Wyle) tells the parents that their son contracted measles from his sister, who has fortunately recovered. But in the boy’s case, he also came down with pneumonia, which one in 20 kids can pick up when coming down with the measles.
When the mother admits that her children are not vaccinated, Robby tells her that MMR is safe but measles is not. The worry is that damage may have occurred to the kid’s brain so further tests are needed, but the helicopter mom is refusing a much-needed spinal tap because Google says the lumbar puncture could cause paralysis.
Not surprisingly, Robby starts to lose it.
Given the current measles outbreak in Texas — as of April 1, there were 422 cases and 42 patients were hospitalized — The Pitt on Max couldn’t be blamed for jumping on a very relevant topic in the drama’s first year. But star Noah Wyle insists it was all a coincidence.
“There were a couple storylines that would appear that we had a crystal ball in the writing room and we wrote them because they feel extremely contemporary,” Wyle tells Deadline. “The first one that surprised us was when we did a storyline about cystic psychosis, or calcified brain worms, and then RFK Jr. was diagnosed as having calcified brain worms. And then it happened again with the measles storyline, where we were leaning in on the fact that, with so much international travel coming through some of our major metropolitan cities, it is an inevitability that diseases that haven’t taken root here will take root here.”
“With people vaccinating less and becoming more suspicious about vaccines, we’re going to see a lot more incidents of these things coming back, whether it’s polio or measles or things that we thought were part of our past,” continues Wyle. “And lo and behold, these breakouts in Texas started happening and coincidentally, we’re going to have an episode that talks about there being a measles outbreak.”
The Pitt, which has already been renewed for a second season, wraps its first season on April 10.
