Saturday Night Live “must do better” after perpetuating the stigma attached to sickle cell disease as a new therapy for the condition takes the limelight in a controversial skit.
The skit starts with Black actor Kenan Thompson being handed a “Christmas present” by a white actress, which sees him enrolled in Vertex and CRISPR Therapeutics’ sickle cell program (all companies mentioned by name).
“Is this a new treatment?” Thompson asks to which actor Kate McKinnon replies: “It’s not a treatment, it’s a cure. The FDA just approved [the drug] this week, but there’s a two-year waiting list,” she adds, but managed to speed up his access as McKinnon’s wife is “a big-wig at CRISPR.”
As part of the “Yankee swap” tradition, however, Thompson swaps his “cure” for a boogie-woogie Santa with white actor Andrew Dismukes. McKinnon tells him that he now has a sickle cell cure that his family could use.
“I doubt it, my whole family is white,” Dismukes replies.
The skit is referencing the newly FDA-approved sickle cell disease (SCD) therapy Casgevy from Vertex Pharmaceuticals and CRISPR Therapeutics, the first therapy of its kind for the disease.
The condition causes unusually shaped red blood cells that do not live as long as healthy blood cells, potentially blocking blood vessels and causing considerable pain for patients. Sickle cell disease is a serious and lifelong health condition, although treatment can help manage many of the symptoms.
SCD affects around 100,000 Americans with a heavy burden on Black Americans as it occurs among about 1 out of every 365 Black or African American births, according to the CDC.
The Sickle Cell Disease Foundation found the skit served to only further serve the stigma that is still attached to the disease. “Just months ago, the Sickle Cell Disease Foundation condemned other television shows for making distasteful ‘jokes’ about sickle cell disease,” said Mary Brown, President and CEO of the Foundation.
“Ignorant and racist jokes make it that much harder to change narratives for the positive or for systemic changes to occur. We work tirelessly to ensure those living with the oldest and most neglected blood disorder receive the attention and respect they deserve, but moments like [the SNL skit] make it that much more difficult.”
She said Dismukes’ reply “only adds to the historic stigmatization and discrimination experienced by this community. Saturday Night Live must do better.”
Brown added that the Foundation will be “providing educational resources to NBC executives, producers, and writers to ensure greater sensitivity to the debilitating impact of sickle cell disease; the discrimination within the health care system; and the importance of these new gene therapies for those living with intense pain, organ damage, and at-risk of early death as a result of this disorder.”