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O Povo na TV was a Brazilian program aired on SBT between 1981-1984 and it was hosted by Wilton Franco, Sérgio Mallandro, Roberto Jefferson, Christina Rocha and Wagner Montes.
The known controversy that the program got involved was the live death of the nine-month old baby called Danubia of cancer in one of her eyes on December 14, 1982.
Incident
On December 14, 1982, the baby's mom Maria Erinalda da Silva went the program's studio in Rio de Janeiro complaining about the lack of care for Danubia, who went to several hospitals that made excuses for not treating her cancer. Danubia's mother sought out the presenter of the program Wilton Franco to say that for five months she had been traveling to hospitals without being able to admit her. Danubia died in front of live cameras, bleeding from her eyes.
On December 17, 1982, in an editorial, Folha de São Paulo criticized the exhibition of the case: "This is a strange conception of people displayed by TVS programming. Daily, O Povo na TV presents a parade of the most varied manifestations of human misery, that would make Pátio dos Milagres jealous. Complaints against individuals or authorities, alongside terrible sufferings and clamorous injustices, all of this amplified by presenters and accomplices specialized in superlatives. TV exceeded itself in bringing to homes, in the afternoon, the agony and the death of a baby, whose mother allegedly refused care in several hospitals in Rio de Janeiro. While they were producing the usual staging, the child died. This is too much".
Aftermath
Despite the criticism the program suffered, O Povo na TV still continued to air until it was cancelled in 1984, after a scandal involving Roberto Lengruber, healer who participated in the program, ended up being arrested, accused of charlatanism.
The incident of the live death of Danubia on O Povo na TV is currently lost and is not available online.