KCET will air withheld healthcare documentary

After withholding a healthcare documentary over worries about violating federal decency laws, officials at KCET-TV Channel 28 have decided to air the four-part series next month.

“Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick?” is now slated to run in its original form on two successive Saturdays, May 17 and May 24, from 9 to 11 p.m.

Last month, the local PBS station suddenly pulled the program, which examines the effect of social and economic inequities upon health, after concerns were raised within the station about a potentially obscene word and an overly graphic bodily depiction.

Even though many other PBS stations around the nation began broadcasting the series March 27, KCET balked at doing so for fear of crossing federal decency standards -- an act that can carry a fine of $325,000 per incident. KCET initially planned to air the documentary on a Sunday afternoon, when decency standards are stricter than in late evening.

“We always intended to air the program,” said station spokeswoman Laurel Lambert. “We were just looking for the right place, and this seems like the best time.”

The documentary’s producers had argued that KCET’s worries about decency standards were largely unfounded.