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| “ | You're not going to silence me. I'll speak the truth from my prison cell... and people will listen. | „ |
| ~ Hutton taunting Kim Greylek about spreading AIDS denial from prison. |
Gideon Hutton is the main antagonist of the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Retro". He is a quack doctor whose AIDS denialist propaganda and medical malpractice result in several deaths.
He was portrayed by the late Martin Mull, who also portrayed Colonel Mustard in Clue, Vlad Plasmius in Danny Phantom, and Willard Kraft in Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
Overview[]
Hutton is a pediatrician in Manhattan whose patients are mostly from low-income immigrant families. He is also a fervent AIDS denier who believes, despite all evidence to the contrary, that HIV does not cause AIDS and that AIDS research is a scam concocted by "Big Pharma" to make billions by selling anti-retroviral drugs, which he says kill people rather than help them. He believes that AIDS is a disease that only afflicts Black people, drug addicts, and gay people, groups he regards with barely concealed contempt.
While he is widely regarded as a quack amongst his peers in the medical community, some of his patients who come from countries whose governments also spread AIDS denial propaganda trust him when he prescribes them homeopathic, vegetable-based "remedies" for HIV and AIDS - products he also sells on his personal AIDS denier website. As a result, many of them end up dying.
"Retro"[]
When an HIV-positive baby is left in front of a fire station, Detectives Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler of the NYPD's Special Victims Unit investigate the couple who left the baby for child neglect. They explain that the baby is not theirs and insist that they were following the advice of the child's pediatrician - Hutton - while the child's mother, who is HIV-positive, is in prison. Benson and Stabler question Hutton, who says that he prescribed the baby a yogurt mixture for her HIV symptoms and throw them out of his office when they call him a fraud.
Sergeant John Munch finds a message on the SVU tipline accusing Hutton of neglecting the baby and his younger sister, who died of AIDS. The message turns out to have come from 14-year-old Tommy Ross, whose sister, Lisa, contracted HIV from their mother Susan's breast milk, Susan having contracted the disease from a tainted blood transfusion following a car accident. Unbeknownst to Susan, she also gave Tommy HIV because, on Hutton's advice, she did not take anti-retroviral drugs while she was pregnant with him.
Benson and Stabler ask Assistant District Attorney Kim Greylek to press charges against Hutton, but she says his actions do not rise to the level of a crime; she does, however, hold a press conference in which she blames him for the baby's poor health, prompting him to threaten to sue the District Attorney's office.
Benson and Stabler investigate further and find out that Susan is also an AIDS denier who breast-fed Lisa even knowing that she was sick, and all because Hutton told her that the disease could not be spread through breast milk. After exhuming Lisa's body, medical examiner Dr. Melinda Warner finds conclusive evidence that the girls died of AIDS and rules her death a homicide. Benson and Stabler then arrest Hutton and Susan for criminally negligent homicide.
At his trial, Hutton uses his testimony to preach his AIDS denial gospel and to accuse Warner of having "an agenda" because, as a Black person, she "must have" many friends and family members who have died of AIDS. When Warner angrily confronts Hutton outside of court, he smugly proclaims himself a medical prophet, even comparing himself to Jesus Christ.
Susan testifies in Hutton's defense, but she has a seizure due to undiagnosed toxoplasmosis. When she regains consciousness in the hospital, she admits to Benson that she went along with Hutton's medical advice because she wanted to believe him when she said she was going to be fine. Before she dies, she tells Benson that Lisa was not the only child to die under Hutton's care.
Greylek subpoenas the medical records of all of Hutton's patients and finds that two other children died of AIDS-related complications while he was treating them, and those children's parents tell her that Hutton advised them not to give their children anti-retroviral drugs. Greylek offers him a plea bargain in which he would plead guilty to criminally negligent homicide and surrender his medical license to return for a five-year prison sentence. Hutton reluctantly takes the deal, but he declares that he will continue to "speak the truth" from prison, and that people will listen to him.
External links[]
- Gideon Hutton on the Law & Order Wiki
