Is Seal Distemper from ‘Doctor Odyssey’ Real?

Photo: Tina Thorpe/Disney

A broken penis, a water slide injury, someone falling off a boat because he or she was too horny – these were just some of the insane injuries from the premiere episode of ABC’s Doctor Odyssey. The only logical explanation for how all this and more could happen in a 60 Minutes episode on network television is that Ryan Murphy is involved. Doctor Odyssey follows handsome doctor Max Bankman (Joshua Jackson), aboard a luxury cruise ship, who is apparently the first diagnosed COVID-19 patient in Connecticut. His first patient is Burt (played by Tom McGowan), who ate so much shrimp that he got iodine poisoning. What is this, a Three 6 Mafia song?

Three ounces of cooked shrimp contain about 13 mcg of iodine, according to the USDA, meaning an average person would have to consume more than 1,100 mcg to potentially develop iodine poisoning. In other words, you would have to eat more than 15 pounds of shrimp to poison yourself. So a very indulgent cruise guest with a history of thyroid problems could be at risk. Dr. Todd McNiff, a New York-based internal medicine physician, also entertained the idea of ​​a shrimp-inspired poisoning, but said it’s probably a “TV thing” and not based in reality. “There is no amount of shrimp someone could eat to get acute iodine poisoning that would kill them,” he explained, confirming that someone would have to eat an ungodly amount of shrimp to do so. But do people actually call iodine poisoning from shrimp ‘seal disease’? Does seal disease actually exist? Dr. McNiff has “never heard of it,” not even in connection with iodine poisoning. It seems to be something the show has gotten right, as most research on “seal disease” shows that diseases affect actual seals or people bitten by them, not seafood lovers. Although the disease may only occur in the Doctor Odyssey cinematic universe, the show has numerous other diseases that plague the guests on board; this was only the first of the season.