Health-focused plots, and sympathetic characters dealing with disease, do seem to stir public reaction. Just one example: A CDC study that chronicled the impact of a 2001 story line on a soap opera, "The Bold and The Beautiful," in which a heterosexual male Hispanic character was diagnosed with HIV. The phone number to a CDC hotline for AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases was televised immediately after the episodes, and calls to the hotline spiked from about 100 calls a day to more than 1,400.

Program officials present themselves as resources, not advocates, so there's been little push to get smoking characters to drop the habit push or eat more fruits and vegetables.

They also do relatively little with the movies. The CDC placed a smoking prevention employee in Hollywood in 2002 as a liaison with the motion picture industry, but stopped funding the effort in 2004. Beck hasn't tried to fill that void.

"Film is too difficult to track and influence because of the many years, writers and stages of change that a film undergoes before it is released," she said.

Health officials acknowledge that it can be tough to work in Hollywood, a town that's driven by relationships. They acknowledge to being cautious about taking steps that might be seen as challenging or critical of entertainment leaders.

That's a failing, said Stanton Glantz, a University of California-San Francisco researcher who leads a campaign to remove smoking from the movies. He's critical of how little success the CDC and others have had in diminishing episodes of cinematic smoking, which he said declined only slightly from 1999 to 2006.

Glantz alluded to recent statistics that show, in the last three years, a leveling off in the decline in both teen and adult smoking.

The CDC's approach "does raise consciousness. It does educate people. But it just hasn't had any effect," he said.

"They should follow the lead of several state and local health departments and start pushing for policy changes — most notably an R rating for smoking," he said.

Beck's work includes not only arranging consultations but also holding the "Sentinel for Health" awards, which recognizes TV shows that do fact-based story lines with positive public health impact.

A Sentinel for Health may lack the cache an Emmy, but writers said the award is noted and appreciated.

"It reflects that hard work that we put in to accurately portray health issues that affect Americans," said Paul Grellong, a writer for "Law & Order: SVU."

Grellong and four of the show's other writers sat in on the recent meeting at Universal Studios with the two HIV experts, Dr. Joseph Cadden and Dr. Jocelyn Suzette Dee of L.A.'s Rand Schrader Clinic.

The meeting was run by Josh Kotcheff, the writer penning the episode, who sat with the doctors at a conference table. The other writers sat on a nearby couch with notebooks, listening for future-episode fodder.

Kotcheff peppered the two with questions about disease theories and the intricacies of HIV testing. He listened intently to their replies. Later, he said he wanted not only to master the realism-ensuring details, but also to be responsible in how he presents characters that deny HIV causes AIDS.

"There are people who do believe these kinds of myths, and it can have an impact on their lives. If they don't take (HIV-fighting) meds, they're going to die," he said.