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Health, Medicine, and Society
Directed by Dale Bell
Investigates the largest auto scam in the world, tracing VW's deliberate installation of defeat devices in their diesel cars to circumvent California and US vehicle emissions standards.
BACKFIRED: When VW Lied to America tells the inside story of the VW scandal as it unravels beginning at West Virginia University in 2013 where a group of unsuspecting students accidentally discover the defeat device while doing rare on-road testing. They immediately share their stunning discovery with CARB (California Air Resources Board) that verifies the findings and engages with the EPA and DOJ to plot carefully filing suit against VW's top executives. VW is slapped with the largest fine in US auto history: $15 billion in what's now known as "Dieselgate." And, it gets worse. Most recently, it was discovered that VW secretly tested emissions from defeat devices on innocent monkeys at a lab in New Mexico.
From West Virginia to California, to Washington DC, to Germany and Paris, we hear from those who broke the case and sought justice. BACKFIRED will leave viewers with new insight into the role of regulators, the power of money, and the willingness of major corporations knowingly to endanger the health of millions and to increase carbon emissions dramatically. Most important, it will inspire viewers to think about our obligation to our children and to continue the fight for clean air and a livable planet.
DVD / 2018 / (Grades 9-12, College, Adults) / 61 minutes
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Directed by Ben Daitz, Ned Judge
What we know, and what we don't know, about the most popular new medicine in the U.S.
This year, 55 million Americans will spend about 55 billion dollars on the medicine in marijuana. In 32 states and the District of Columbia, they will use it for a myriad of medical conditions, depending on anecdotal advice about the frequency and dosage of cannabis, a plant with over 400 different chemical molecules. It's a messy mix of medicine, policy and politics--while cannabis is still federally classified as a Schedule 1 drug.
Based on the 2017 National Academy of Sciences report about the effectiveness of cannabis for treating the side-effects of chemotherapy, chronic pain, epilepsy, and PTSD, The Medicine in Marijuana tells patients' stories, and those of the practitioners and researchers involved in their care: an infant with unremitting seizures; a man with an inoperable cancer; a woman with chronic pain; a veteran of 5 tours of duty with PTSD.
Across centuries and cultures, people have told stories about the healing powers of cannabis, but the plural of anecdote is not evidence. Now, the science is catching up with the stories, and The Medicine in Marijuana tells it like it is.
DVD / 2018 / (Grades 6-12, College, Adults) / 35 minutes
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Directed by Charles Burnett & Daniel Loewenthal
The untold story of how the twin struggles for racial justice and healthcare intersected: creating Medicare and desegregating thousands of hospitals at the same time.
POWER TO HEAL tells a poignant chapter in the historic struggle to secure equal and adequate access to healthcare for all Americans. Central to the story is the tale of how a new national program, Medicare, was used to mount a dramatic, coordinated effort that desegregated thousands of hospitals across the country in a matter of months.
Before Medicare, disparities in access to hospital care were dramatic. Less than half the nation's hospitals served black and white patients equally, and in the South, 1/3 of hospitals would not admit African-Americans even for emergencies.
Using the carrot of Medicare dollars, the federal government virtually ended the practice of racially segregating patients, doctors, medical staffs, blood supplies and linens. POWER TO HEAL illustrates how Movement leaders and grass-roots volunteers pressed and worked with the federal government to achieve justice and fairness for African-Americans.
DVD / 2018 / (Grades 9-12, College, Adults) / 56 minutes
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Directed by Anna Moot-Levin, Laura Green
Three healthcare providers bring care to a rural American community, showing the transformative power of providers' relationships with marginalized patients.
Set against the backdrop of the physician shortage and opioid epidemic in rural America, THE PROVIDERS follows three healthcare providers in northern New Mexico. They work at El Centro, a group of safety-net clinics that offer care to all who walk through the doors, regardless of ability to pay. Amidst personal struggles that reflect those of their patients, the journeys of the providers unfold as they work to reach rural Americans who would otherwise be left out of the healthcare system. With intimate access, the documentary shows the transformative power of providers' relationships with marginalized patients.
DVD / 2018 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adults) / 82 minutes
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Directors: Jenny Mackenzie, Jared Ruga, Amanda Stoddard
In Salt Lake City, Utah, the religious monoculture severely complicated the AIDS crisis, where patients received no support from-or were cast into exile by-the political, religious, and medical communities. Further, Mormon culture encouraged gay men to marry women and have a family to cure themselves of their "affliction," counsel which led to secret affairs and accidental marital transmissions of HIV. In the entire state and intermountain region there was only one doctor to serve all HIV/AIDS patients. This is the story of her fight to save the lives of a maligned population everyone else seemed willing to just let die.
Dr. Kristen Ries came to Salt Lake City with the hope and ambition to set up a medical practice of her own. By chance, she arrived on the exact same day the CDC released a report about a new infectious disease affecting populations of gay men. This intrigued Dr. Ries and she launched her long career as the premier specialist who treated HIV/AIDS patients. What started as hospice care for highly stigmatized individuals became a model for compassionate care at the height of the AIDS epidemic. She faced stigma and blame in a repressive religious culture and had to find creative ways to serve her patients. She and her Physician's Assistant, Maggie Snyder, developed backdoor patient policies, underground drug markets, and status confidentiality policies to give their patients the best possible chance at prolonging their lives-or at worst, dying comfortably. When their families, their churches and social circles, their politicians, and even other doctors had abandoned them, Kristen Ries and Maggie Snyder created a safe haven amidst a sea of hate and fear for those who had nowhere else to turn.
DVD / 2018 / 68 minutes
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Director: Meagan Murphy
Real women reveal their breasts and uncover personal truths in this gently provocative documentary exploring embodiment, womanhood, and the power of being seen.
The Breast Archives features nine women's personal stories of empowerment. Baring their breasts and their hearts, the women share the unique journeys they've made with their bodies, from their formative years of hiding, shame, and disconnection to adulthood and the discovery of what it means to be a powerful woman. As the women slowly reconnect with their body-based stories they find a reservoir of strength and wisdom that lies within their breasts.
DVD / 2017 / 57 minutes
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Directed by Judith Pyke
A clinical research trial at the Personalized OncoGenomics Program is changing the way scientists think about the future of cancer care.
Six years ago Zuri Scrivens, the mother of a toddler, was very ill with incurable breast cancer that had spread to her liver and lymph nodes. Today Zuri has no signs of cancer, not because of a miraculous new cancer drug, but thanks to a diabetes medication.
CRACKING CANCER follows a group of patients with incurable cancer on a trailblazing journey through a highly experimental clinical trial at the BC Cancer Agency in Vancouver called POG -- Personalized OncoGenomics.
The trial compares patients' normal DNA -- each cell's complete set of instructions -- with that of their tumors, to find the genetic mutations causing their cancer. Zuri's cancer driver was a mutation that caused a very high growth factor. The team plowed through decades of data to isolate which drug in all of medicine, not just cancer, might block that growth factor. They zeroed in on a diabetes medication. Zuri received the drug and standard hormone treatment. Within 5 months, her cancer became undetectable.
POG offers a radical new way of treating cancer, not according to where it originates in the body, but rather as a disease of genetic mutations. Thousands more will join the trial, all hoping for their own salvation, all helping science to crack the cancer code.
DVD / 2017 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adults) / 44 minutes
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Directed by Heather White, Lynn Zhang
Benzene-poisoned, Foxconn factory worker takes his fight against the global smartphone industry from his hospital bed in China to the international stage.
Yi YeTing is struggling with occupational leukemia and trying to obtain compensation from his employer. Wanting to help others, he begins working for a non-profit that assists workers with occupational illness and injuries.
He discovers there are dozens of workers in his local area who were poisoned while making smartphones. Through research in the community, he discovers a leukemia cluster in the neighborhood surrounding Apple's main supplier Foxconn. Yi's research leads him to several workers and their families trying to survive while burdened with their health care costs. Powerful forces are unleashed as he confronts local factories, putting his own safety at risk.
DVD / 2016 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adults) / 89 minutes
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Directed by Eve Marson
The case of Dr. William Hurwitz educates audiences on the complexities involved in opioid painkiller prescriptions.
The story of Dr. William Hurwitz - a preeminent pain specialist sentenced to 25 years in prison for drug trafficking - provides a window into the ethical dilemma of opioid prescriptions. Painkillers give doctors tremendous power to relieve pain, a primary goal of any physician. But this power begets trouble when the same drugs can lead to addiction, abuse and death.
In 2004 Dr. William Hurwitz was convicted of over 50 counts of narcotics distribution and handed a 25-year prison sentence. DR. FEELGOOD traces Dr. Hurwitz's trial and eventual appeal, detailing the events that led to his arrest.
Testimonies from the witnesses in Dr. Hurwitz's case contradict one another - some revere him, while others condemn him. Taken together, their accounts reveal a profile of a compassionate yet flawed doctor. The film, in telling his story, underscores the tension between every patient's right to pain relief and the lawful need for drug control. There could not be a more critical time to spark discussion on the topic, and call for careful thought and action.
DVD / 2016 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adults) / 84 minutes
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Director: Donald Rayne Mitchell
The 20th century was a dangerous time to be young: a multitude of diseases too often kept children from reaching even their teenage years. Millions suffered and died. From that environment one man would emerge to lead a revolution in vaccine innovation that would save many millions of young lives every year; the greatest scientist of the 20th century, and no one knows his name.
Maurice Hilleman had a singular, unwavering focus: to eliminate the diseases of children. From his poverty-stricken youth on the plains of Montana, Hilleman came to prevent pandemic flu, invent the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, and develop the first-ever vaccine against human cancer. Responsible for more than half of the vaccines children receive today, he is credited with saving more than eight million lives every year. Now through exclusive interviews with Dr. Hilleman and his peers, rare archival footage, and 3-D animation, this documentary puts a human face to vaccine science, revealing the character that drove this bold, complex, and heroic man.
When parents began choosing not to vaccinate their children in the 1990s, a cruel irony became clear; Hilleman's unprecedented successes have allowed us to forget just how devastating childhood diseases can be.
DVD / 2016 / 67 minutes
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Directed by Bruce Mohun
Scientists are hunting urgently for new antibiotics - a challenge that is taking them to some remote and unusual places.
Increasing resistance to antibiotics has been called the most pressing global health problem of our time. Medical experts are predicting a post-antibiotic era, in which people will die of infections easily treated just a few years ago -- unless we find more of these miracle drugs.
THE ANTIBIOTIC HUNTERS follows drug researchers as they investigate the slimy green fur of sloths, the saliva of Komodo dragons, the blood of alligators, and the bacteria in British Columbia caves and on the ocean floor off the coast of Panama -- all part of the urgent hunt to find the building blocks of new antibiotics.
DVD / 2015 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adult) / 44 minutes
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Director: Tal Granit & Sharon Maymon
The Farewell Party is a unique, compassionate and unlikely funny story of a group of friends at a Jerusalem retirement home who decide to help their terminally ill friend. When rumors of their assistance begin to spread, more and more people ask for their help, and the friends are faced with a life and death dilemma. Co-directors Sharon Maymon and Tal Granit have tackled an extremely sensitive issue in a vibrant and unique way.
DVD (Hebrew with English subtitles) / 2015 / 95 minutes
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Director: Dirk Jan Roeleven
The Lance Armstrong saga and countless other doping scandals may have permanently damaged the sport of Cycling. But Clean Spirit introduces us to one pro cycling team that strives to compete the "right way," placing them at a profound disadvantage. Argos-Shimano is determined to show that winning is possible without doping. We follow the team during the 100th edition of the Tour de France. Knowing that they cannot beat their opponents in the mountains, they have specialized in the sprint.
We see the young team inside their hotel rooms, at breakfast and at team meetings. We hear German sprint talent Marcel Kittel promising his teammates a Rolex if they let him win the first stage. In the excitement of the race see Mark Cavendish cause Argos-Shimano sprinter Tom Veelers to crash, ultimately forcing him to leave the Tour. While Cavendish tries to intimidate his opponent, Kittel takes his revenge in the ultimate stage in Paris, leading Argos-Shimano to victory.
DVD ( Dutch, French, Spanish, German, English with English subtitles) / 2014 / 88 minutes
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Director: Muffie Meyer
We spend almost a trillion dollars a year on high-tech tests and yet almost one fifth of patients are misdiagnosed. In Making Rounds we are introduced to the power and superiority of methods of traditional diagnosis based on decades of experience, doctor-patient discussions, physical touch, and personal observation. We follow two prominent cardiologists getting it right, teaching future doctors the 'old-fashion' art and science of a thorough bedside physical exam. "A great many diseases may be diagnosed," they tell us, "just by looking at a patient's hand."
Filmed over one month in the cardiac care unit of a top New York hospital, we see the doctors in action, correcting previous misdiagnoses, predicting outcomes, saving lives, demonstrating - in dramatic real-world situations -that simply looking at and listening to patients remains medicine's most indispensable tool.
DVD / 2014 / 63 minutes
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Director: Lucia Small and Ed Pincus
When seminal documentarian Ed Pincus, considered the father of first person non-fiction film, is diagnosed with a terminal illness, he and collaborator Lucia Small team up to make one last film, much to the chagrin of Jane, Ed's wife of 50 years. Told from two filmmakers' points of view, One Cut, One Life challenges the form of first person documentary. Ed and Lucia's unique approach to filming offers a vulnerability and intimacy rarely seen in non- fiction, questioning whether some things might be too private to be made public. The film is an intense, raw, and sometimes humorous exploration of the human condition which invites the viewer to contemplate for themselves what is important, not only at the end of life, but also during.
DVD / 2014 / 105 minutes
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Directed by Charles Evans Jr.
The true story of the tobacco companies' commitment to addicting the human brain and how the world came to know about it.
DDICTION INCORPORATED tells the true story of how former Philip Morris scientist Victor DeNoble's unexpected discovery of an addiction ingredient in tobacco led to more addictive cigarettes, and how his Congressional testimony forever changed how tobacco is sold and marketed.
The public revelation of long-held tobacco industry secrets leads journalists, politicians, attorneys and whistleblowers into an unexpected alliance that achieves the first-ever federal regulation of the tobacco industry.
Victor's unwavering determination to "do some good" leads to a career as an educator that informs kids about the world's only industry where success is measured by a corporation's ability to addict.
DVD / 2013 / (Grades 8-12, College, Adult) / 76 minutes
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Directed by Linda Booker, Blaire Johnson
Extols the many benefits of industrial hemp for the environment and human health, while revealing the obstacles to what could be a thriving industry for U.S. farmers.
Industrial Hemp is making headlines in American media with the recent Farm Bill amendment allowing hemp research crops in ten states. But why does Federal policy still classify and confuse this non-psychoactive plant with marijuana as a drug? BRINGING IT HOME tells the story of hemp's past, present and future through interviews with global hemp business leaders and entrepreneurs, archive images, animation and footage filmed in Europe and the United States.
The film features the designer of "America's First Hemp House" and his quest to find the healthiest building material available to construct a safe environment for his daughter with chemical sensitivities. He discovers non-toxic, carbon neutral hempcrete that is recyclable, pest-fire-mold-resistant and cuts energy bills in half. But the major drawback for U.S. builders is that the fiber for hempcrete must be imported. Current U.S. Federal policy does not distinguish hemp from its psychoactive plant cousin marijuana, despite a long history of hemp farming in America up until the 1940s.
BRINGING IT HOME follows the hemp trail to the U.K. where business owners, researchers, farmers and Kevin McCloud, TV host of Grand Designs, discuss industrial hemp use in their country. Also featured are interviews with CEOs of million dollar U.S. companies that are importing hemp for healthy, sustainable products, and those working for policy change at the state and federal levels. A lobbyist for the CA Narcotics Officers Association gives voice to the opposition.
BRINGING IT HOME makes the case for all the benefits of a misunderstood plant that will leave viewers wondering: why aren't we growing it here?
DVD / 2013 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 52 minutes
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Directed by Ryan McGarry
Unprecedented access to the ER at Los Angeles County Hospital provides a doctor's-eye view into the heart of our complex and overburdened healthcare system.
In his vivid and thought-provoking filmmaking debut, physician Ryan McGarry gives us unprecedented access to America's busiest Emergency Department. Amidst real life-and-death situations, McGarry follows a dedicated team of charismatic, young doctors-in-training as they wrestle openly with both their ideals and with the realities of saving lives in a complex and overburdened system. Their training ground and source of inspiration is "C-Booth," Los Angeles County Hospital's legendary trauma bay, the birthplace of Emergency Medicine, where "more people have died and more people have been saved than in any other square footage in the United States."
CODE BLACK offers a tense, doctor's-eye view, right into the heart of the healthcare debate - bringing us face to face with America's only 24/7 safety net.
DVD / 2013 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 81 minutes
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Director: Riley Morton and Nils Cowan
Evergreen: The Road to Legalization is the definitive feature documentary film on Ballot Initiative 502, which made Washington the first American state to legalize possession of recreational marijuana for adults 21 and older, when it went into effect on December 6, 2012. Evergreen: The Road to Legalization captures this historic time, providing a balanced view of the issues surrounding Initiative 502 by going inside both proponent and opponent camps to see how citizens are working to change cannabis prohibition policy.
This documentary serves as a case study to demonstrate how Washington State citizens have dealt with the complex politics surrounding marijuana prohibition. What are the local, federal and cultural implications of the first U.S. state voting to approve recreational marijuana possession by a 56 percent to 44 percent margin? How did Washington State get a marijuana reform law passed while Proposition 19 failed in California? Why are many medical marijuana patients, dispensaries and care providers strongly opposed to I-502?
Evergreen answers these questions while tracking the behind-the-scenes efforts of both campaigns - from initial grassroots fundraising efforts, to tense exchanges and conflict-filled campaign stops, to the historic vote by Washington state citizens that effectively ended 75 years of cannabis prohibition policy and its future implications.
DVD / 2013 / 86 minutes
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Director: Lucia Puenzo
Patagonia, 1960. A German doctor (Alex Brendemuhl) meets an Argentinean family and follows them on a long desert road to a small town where the family will be starting a new life. Eva (Natalia Oreiro), Enzo (Diego Peretti) and their three children welcome the doctor into their home and entrust their young daughter, Lilith (Florencia Bado), to his care, not knowing that they are harboring one of the most dangerous criminals in the world. At the same time, Israeli agents are desperately looking to bring The German Doctor to justice.
The time Josef Mengele spent in Bariloche, Argentina is the most mysterious period of his hideout in Latin America. All that is known is that Mengele worked as a veterinarian, experimenting with the Argentine cattle, while he secretly continued his research buying blood samples of pregnant women. Mengele was a fanatic who saw himself as a visionary with this extraordinary historical opportunity: the essence of his ideology was to achieve biological perfection and to destroy anything interfering with this goal. This biomedical vision is at the heart of the Nazi movement, and not just tangential to its war.
Based on filmmaker Lucia Puenzo's (XXY) fifth novel, the story follows Josef Mengele, the "Angel of Death," a German SS officer and a physician at the Auschwitz concentration camp, in the years he spent "hiding", along with many other Nazi's, in South America following his escape from Germany. Mengele was considered to be one of WWII's most heinous Nazi war criminals.
DVD (Spanish and German with English Subtitles) / 2013 / 93 minutes
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Directed by Arjun Pandey
The people of India are faced with a choice: indulge in a Western-style fast food diet, or embrace healthy and indigenous alternatives.
Everyday, as India awakes, 1.2 billion people need to be fed. By 2050 it could be 1.7 billion. Half a billion small scale farmers supply most of India's food. Traditionally, Indians have eaten the healthy cuisine of India's 29 states, but as people move to the cities there's a growing demand for fast processed food, the so-called 'junk food' accused of causing obesity and chronic health problems.
Now India is a country on the edge of two possible futures: a future that's well fed and healthy; or a future with Western diets and Western obesity. With so many hungry people to feed, is it possible to eat in ways that are nutritionally and environmentally sustainable? What role do governments have to play in creating economic incentives for sustainable diets?
DVD / 2012 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adult) / 29 minutes
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Directed by Roger Weisberg
An investigation of the dangers the nation faces from runaway health care spending as well as the dangers patients face from over-diagnosis and over-treatment.
As rising health care costs threaten to bankrupt the country, MONEY & MEDICINE tackles the medical, ethical, and financial challenges of containing runaway health care spending. In addition to illuminating the so-called waste and overtreatment that pervade our medical system, this timely documentary explores promising ways to reduce health care expenditures and improve the overall quality of medical care.
MONEY & MEDICINE was filmed at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles and Intermountain Medical Center in Utah. While UCLA ranks among the nation's top academic medical centers, it spends considerably more than the national average on patient care. In contrast, Intermountain spends about a third less than the national average and is a model for low cost/high quality medical care. The dramatic doctor/patient stories filmed at these two hospitals illuminate the powerful forces driving soaring health care costs as well as proven strategies that effectively reign in excessive medical spending.
With remarkable candor, MONEY & MEDICINE captures the painful end-of-life treatment choices made by patients and their families, ranging from very aggressive interventions in the ICU to palliative care at home. The film also investigates the controversy surrounding diagnostic testing and screening as well as the shocking treatment variations among patients receiving a variety of elective procedures.
As the focus of health care reform shifts from the access crisis to the cost crisis, MONEY & MEDICINE makes a timely contribution to the debate over cost containment and deficit reduction that is heating up as we approach the 2012 presidential election.
DVD (Closed Captioned) / 2012 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 83 minutes
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Directed by Peter Nicks
A day in the life of a public hospital's ER waiting room captures what it means for millions of Americans to live without health insurance.
The Waiting Room is a character-driven documentary film that uses extraordinary access to go behind the doors of an American public hospital struggling to care for a community of largely uninsured patients. The film - using a blend of cinema verite and characters' voiceover - offers a raw, intimate, and even uplifting look at how patients, staff and caregivers each cope with disease, bureaucracy and hard choices.
The ER waiting room serves as the grounding point for the film, capturing in vivid detail what it means for millions of Americans to live without health insurance. We witness the minute-by-minute Sisyphean struggle that plagues public hospitals, where emergency rooms have to field the overwhelming health care needs of the inner city. Young victims of gun violence take their turn alongside artists and small business owners who lack insurance. The film weaves the stories of several patients - as well as the hospital staff charged with caring for them - as they cope with the complexity of the nation's public health care system, while weathering the storm of a national recession.
The Waiting Room lays bare the struggle and determination of both a community and an institution coping with limited resources and no road map for navigating a health care landscape marked by historic economic and political dysfunction. It is a film about one hospital, its multifaceted community, and how our common vulnerability to illness binds us together as humans.
DVD / 2012 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 82 minutes
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Directed by Rachel Seifert
Documents the devastating effects of the war on drugs and suggests realistic alternatives.
COCAINE UNWRAPPED tells the story of cocaine: coca farmers in Colombia, drug mules in Ecuadorian prisons, cocaine factories in the Bolivian jungle, dealers on the streets of Mexico, law enforcement officials on the streets of Baltimore -- and the everyday consumers around the dinner tables of the West.
It's a story of politics, death, economic and environmental devastation and human suffering, and explores realistic alternatives to the war on drugs.
The film features front line reportage, exclusive access to the political leaders of Latin America, such as Evo Morales of Bolivia and Rafael Correa of Ecuador, as well as revealing interviews with drug czars. Watch this film and you will never think the same way again about the "War on Drugs".
DVD / 2011 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 83 minutes
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Director: Nicole Bellucci
From the time he was a child Wolfgang Fasser knew he'd lose his eyesight to the genetic disease retinitus pigmentosa. But as darkness descended, a new world began to open up to him: the world of sound. He marveled at its richness and nuance, at how it moved him and made him connect with nature and with the people around him. Forced to abandon his childhood dream of being a veterinarian, Wolfgang instead became a musical therapist for disabled children.
Tucked away in the Swiss mountains he built a safe haven in which children can explore and create sound through instruments like cymbals, drums and piano, or feel sound vibrations resonate through their bodies on a therapeutic bed of chords. Tension dissipates as they open to the mysteries of sound and music; Wolfgang's empathy, compassion and patience add to an environment in which the children blossom. In his transcendent directorial debut, Nicola Bellucci focuses with quiet reverence on Wolfgang just as Wolfgang focuses on the children in his care.
DVD (Italian and Swiss German with English Subtitles) / 2010 / 90 minutes
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Explores the links between the hundreds of toxic pollutants in our environment and increasing health problems.
A global experiment is in progress, and we are the guinea pigs.
Tons of chemicals are released into the environment everyday. The average citizen is not only unaware of this daily exposure, but of the long-term effects these toxic substances can have on living organisms. The majority of the 100,000 industrial compounds developed since World War II that are now in daily use around the world have never been tested for the type of consistent, low-level exposure we experience in our day-to-day lives.
These compounds find their way into the body in a variety of ways: in the food we eat and the air we breathe, through contact with the skin, and in many cases passed from mother to infant in the womb. Up to 247 toxic substances have been found in newborns alone. Today we are handing down a toxic load to our children along with our genetic legacy.
Carried out with intelligence and humor, Homo Toxicus explores the myriad links between these toxic substances and increasing health problems such as cancer, allergies, hyperactivity, and infertility. Interviews with industry scientists and independent researchers shed light on inconsistent standards used for evaluation and regulation of chemical agents. The findings are disturbing and strongly challenge us to re-evaluate the laws and procedures currently in place to safeguard our health against man-made chemicals and potential environmental pollutants.
DVD (Color, Closed Captioned) / 2008 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 88 minutes
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Directed by Megan Siler
Explores the relationship between breast cancer and exposure to toxic chemicals.
Breast cancer receives a great deal of attention in the U.S. An entire month is devoted to it; millions of dollars are raised for it. People run, walk, write and conduct research -- all for the cause of breast cancer. Yet, despite these efforts, growing numbers of American women develop breast cancer each year and we still do not know why, or how best to prevent it. Most breast cancer funding and research has gone toward treatment, and finding the elusive cure. Far less emphasis has been given to prevention and discovering the causes of breast cancer.
TOXIC BUST, a thought-provoking and visually compelling documentary, uncovers the growing evidence which links breast cancer to chemical exposure.
The film follows a 40-something woman who finds a lump in her breast, but like the majority of women with breast cancer, she has none of the "established" risk factors. As she questions what may have caused her cancer, the film focuses on three cancer "hotspots" (Cape Cod MA, SF Bay Area, and hi-tech manufacturing workers) to more fully explore the connection between breast cancer and chemical exposure in the home, community and workplace.
TOXIC BUST also raises questions about the long term health costs associated with early childhood chemical exposure and highlights the disproportionate toxic burden carried by low-income communities and workers.
Interweaving fiction and documentary, hard science and personal testimony, TOXIC BUST challenges viewers to question how chemical use in the United States undermines the health of its citizens.
DVD (Color) / 2006 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 41 minutes
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