The American Medical Association isn't going to like ". . . first do no harm." But the TV movie's star, Meryl Streep, doesn't care.
"We were fueled by a very personal sort of fire on this project," Streep said in an interview. "It was not purely entertainment. It's unapologetically got an agenda."And that agenda is not one that doctors are going to like. This fact-based movie is extremely negative toward the medical profession - not that it's a difficult point of view to understand, given the circumstances.
The title of the movie - from the Hippocratic Oath - sums up its point of view.
This is the story of 4-year-old Robbie Reimuler (Seth Adkins), who develops severe epilepsy. Doctors try to treat the boy through a variety of drugs - all of which produce side effects, and none of which prove effective. The doctors then advise brain surgery.
What they never mention is something called the "Ketogenic Diet," a high-fat, strictly regulated treatment that's been around since the 1920s. It provided the answer the neurologists could not. And the boy's mother, Lori (Streep), found out about the diet on her own while reading about epilepsy in a medical library.
It's an outstanding TV movie - one of the best this season - but it's also a wrenching experience. Streep delivers her usual fine performance, but what really makes ". . . first do no harm" work is the performance of young Adkins, a 6-year-old playing a 4-year-old. He's amazing.
"His mom has worked with kids with seizure disorders. I think she spent a lot of time coaching him," said Jim Abrahams, the movie's director, producer and executive producer.
What fueled Streep's personal fire for this movie was the trial gone through by her friend, Abrahams (the director of movies like "Airplane!" and the "Naked Gun" series). His young son, Charlie, also developed epilepsy. Like Robbie Reimuler, Charlie went through unsuccessful drug treatment. Unlike Robbie, Charlie also underwent unsuccessful brain surgery.
And, like Lori Reimuler, Abrahams found out about the Ketogenic Diet one day while reading a medical text.
Abrahams and Streep became friends when their children both attended the same school.
"I was pregnant with my youngest about the same time that Nancy (Abrahams) was pregnant with Charlie," Streep said. "And when he was about a year old, Charlie began to manifest symptoms of epilepsy. So I was familiar with their ordeal as they sort of negotiated this medical labyrinth to find a treatment for him that would make him better."
She learned about the Ketogenic Diet when it proved to be a a miracle cure for Charlie. "He had a miraculous reaction. From 90 seizures a day, he had none!" she said.
So impressed was Streep that she agreed to appear in an informational video Abrahams produced to get the word out about the diet. That video, in turn, prompted an enormous amount of mail to both Streep and Abrahams.
"And one of the letters was this story that we have dramatized here," Streep said.
In ". . . first do no harm," the family in question is nearly ripped apart by their young son's epilepsy. Adding to the strain on the family is the loss of their medical insurance, which destroys them financially.
"A significant difference between the story in the movie and my family's story is that we have great medical insurance, and I've had a successful career, and money was no object," Abrahams said. "So we took our desperately ill child to half a dozen of the leading pediatric neurologists in the United States . . . put him in their lap and said, `What can you do?'
"And they all agreed with the drugs and with the surgeries. Nobody ever told us about the Ketogenic Diet."
It's obvious that this remains a highly emotional issue for Abrahams. And making ". . . first do no harm" was a highly emotional experience for the director.
"I cried a lot," Abrahams said. "I would venture to say hardly a day went by when there weren't some tears that were shed, but we were so sure that what this movie is ultimately about is such valuable information: The fact that you can walk in to a doctor in 1997 with a critically ill child and be deprived of valuable information - well-documented information that is very germane to his well-being. It's an important message for all of us to understand so that we can be advocates for our own health and our children's health.
"So, yes, it was emotional. And, yes, it was draining and all that kind of stuff. But I really think that we were all driven by what this movie is really about."
Which is why a two-time Oscar winner like Streep got involved - as both star and an executive producer - working for a fee that was "a lot" less than she'd make working on a theatrical film.
"This was a project that we'd talked about making as a feature. But we thought seven people would see it," Streep said. "And we thought the best way to get the largest possible audience would be to put it on TV."
What that audience is going to see is a stunning story that seems unbelievable - but it's true. If it's hard for viewers to understand how doctors could ignore the Ketogenic Diet, Abrahams thinks he's come to understand it. Not that, once again, doctors will like his interpretation.
"A neurologist looks at it from the point of view of someone who's never held his child while he's having a seizure, has never seen his child's eyes roll back in his head, has never been sitting in a waiting room when they were carving up his child's brain," Abrahams said. "The problem with the Ketogenic Diet, I think, is that it doesn't come in pill form. There is no drug company selling it to the neurologist. It can't be administered by a scalpel. So there's no hospital that's really an advocate that will profit from it."
When someone questioned whether this movie might provide false hope to parents of children afflicted with epilepsy, Abrahams took umbrage.
"There is an additional danger of depriving people of hope when there is great hope," he said. According to researchers at Johns Hopkins, since the diet was first developed in the 1920s it has stopped the seizures in about a third of the children who use it. Another third have shown significant improvement.
"Those statistics far outshine any of the drugs or the surgeries they subject children to today who are afflicted with seizure disorders," Abrahams said. "One of the issues that the movie tries to deal with specifically is how cruel it is to deprive people of hope.
"I can tell you, from my family's experience, that absolutely the darkest hour is when you think that you've tried everything."
For his part, Abrahams is not exactly willing to forgive and forget, but he has come to terms with what happened to his son.
"This experience has restored my faith," Abrahams said. "I can tell you that while this was going on - and we're not a very religious family, I don't think - but my family prayed every day. And I'm not sure that it is the prayer that led to our son getting better, but I can guarantee you it is the prayer that gave us the strength to go from day to day."
And, in addition to getting out the word on the Ketogenic Diet, he's hoping that the publicity will help raise funds to study how it works. Although it has proven to be effective, doctors still don't understand why.
Young Charlie - who has a small part in the movie as a playmate of Robbie's - was on the diet for two years when doctors told his parents to start weaning him off it. But his seizures returned.
"So that certainly has a lot to do with our intensity with wanting to study the diet some more," Abrahams said.
And whether doctors like it or not, Streep and Abrahams are determined to spread their message.
"It happens, and it's true," Streep said. "If it were made up and nothing happens like this, everybody'd be worried. But this happens."
She does, however, want to remain on good terms with individual doctors.
"I'm going to take (the movie) right to my pediatrician and say, `Now, look, we made this but don't get mad at me. And answer my calls in the middle of the night,' " Streep said.