Medical History Pictures, Inc. (MHP) is a Pennsylvania non-profit corporation committed to public education about medical sciences through the development, production and broad dissemination of compelling documentary film and video coupled with continued outreach programming. MHP believes that by putting a human face to medical science, public understanding and confidence in that science can be strengthened. MHP pledges to present scientifically defensible, historically accurate and emotionally compelling content in all its programming.
MHP is a partnership of Dr. Paul Offit, Gloria Lewis and Donald Rayne Mitchell. For more than twenty years Gloria and Donald have worked together, producing and directing television commercials, long-format documentary and educational projects. They began collaboration with Dr. Paul Offit in 2001 creating two educational video presentations, Vaccines: Separating Fact from Fear and Vaccines and Your Baby. Together, they founded Medical History Pictures in 2005.
Donald Rayne Mitchell is founder and owner of Eyeline Pictures, LLC and a co-founder of Medical History Pictures, Inc. With producer Gloria Lewis and Dr. Paul Offit he co-wrote and directed the feature documentary film, HILLEMAN – A Perilous Quest to Save the World’s Children, which has garnered international awards and screened at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, DC. Mr. Mitchell has worked closely with the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to develop the Vaccine Makers Project, a K-12 curriculum-based initiative designed to educate the next generation of parents about the immune system, infectious diseases and the science of vaccines. Currently, Mr. Mitchell is developing a dramatic feature-length movie about the smallpox eradication effort based on Dr. Bill Foege’s book, House on Fire (University of California Press, 2011).
Gloria Lewis is a co-founder of Medical History Pictures, Inc. and a partner of Cornerstone Pictures/CPI Communications. She has been a producer for over 25 years managing projects as diverse as a Presidential campaign, commercials for the worlds’ fastest roller coasters, tourism projects for cities and states, and the last commercial campaign ever filmed at the top of the World Trade Center, in New York. She has filmed in Europe, Canada and throughout the United States. In 1995 she was selected to produce The White House Campaign for Mammography, with Hilary Rodham Clinton and Whitney Houston, filmed in Cologne, Germany. She has extensive experience producing long-format productions, specifically for the health care industry. Her company, Cornerstone Pictures, has won several regional awards for excellence in production. Gloria has helped coordinate four feature films, four music videos, three television pilots, the television series “Philly,” and for six years was the Philadelphia Producer of the hit CBS television series, Cold Case.
Dr. Paul Offit is the Founder and co-Director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia as well as the Maurice R. Hilleman Professor of Vaccinology and a Professor of Pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Offit has published more than 160 papers in medical and scientific journals in the areas of rotavirus-specific immune responses and vaccine safety. He is also the co-inventor (with Dr. Plotkin and Dr. H. Fred Clark) of the rotavirus vaccine, RotaTeq®, recommended for universal use in infants by the CDC. He is also the author of ten medical narratives, including Vaccinated: One Man’s Quest to Defeat the World’s Deadliest Diseases (HarperCollins, 2007) and You Bet Your Life: From Blood Transfusions to Mass Vaccinations—The Long and Risky History of Medical Innovations (Basic Books, 2021).
