The Pitt star Noah Wyle—a.k.a. Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitchis—is fed up with anti-vaxxers and medical skepticism.
“I find it infuriating that we still can’t come to a consensus that masks cut down on transmission of disease,” the 53-year-old ER alum told Variety. “I find it infuriating that we still won’t acknowledge that vaccines are an important way of eradicating disease.
“I find it all infuriating that we are where we are right now,” said the actor, whose mother worked as an orthopedic nurse.
Wyle’s impassioned remarks come as distrust in longstanding medical science reaches new heights. President Donald Trump has appointed longtime anti-vaccine crusader Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services—following a wave of medical distrust that surged during the COVID-19 pandemic amid backlash to mask and vaccine mandates.
As the nation’s top health official, Kennedy has offered only tepid support for vaccines even as the country grapples with the largest measles outbreak in more than 30 years. Most of the 505 reported cases have occurred in unvaccinated children in Texas, and the death of an unvaccinated child last week marked the third fatality tied to the outbreak.
Wyle said part of the inspiration behind The Pitt, the breakout emergency room drama he stars in and executive produces, was to help bring “back into sharp focus what an objective medical fact is.”
That mission has played out in some eerily timely storylines. In last week’s episode, the emergency room grapples with an unvaccinated boy who is suffering from measles and his mother, who refuses to allow a crucial procedure because she trusts Google more than the doctors.
Wyle told Deadline the measles episode coinciding with an actual outbreak was a coincidence—but said the push to keep storylines “extremely contemporary” has made it appear as if there was “a crystal ball in the writing room.”
“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,” Wyle said.
“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.”
In another episode, nurse Dana Evans, portrayed by Katherine LaNasa, has to shut down a waiting room fist-fight after a woman becomes angry at being offered a mask for her coughing child. When that woman later needs surgery, Dr. Langdon (Patrick Ball) asks her if she would prefer her surgeons don’t wear masks even though they are well-known to “minimize risk when it comes to spreading disease and infection.” She reluctantly agrees to masks in the operating room.
The Pitt has been renewed for a second season on Max. The first season’s 15th and last episode comes out on April 10.
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