Guillot_Annotation+4

Rachel Guillot Film Annotation 4  Homo-Toxicus The film Homo-Toxicus directed by Carole Poliquin and released in 2008 was also produced by Carole Poliquin and describes the issues of toxic chemicals that are legalized especially within Canada.

The purpose of the film is to aware the public [specifically the Canadian public] of certain chemicals that are legalized in Canada but are harmful to one’s health, as well as to bring awareness to the problem of politics when it comes to toxic chemicals. As a baseline it followed one woman’s journey as she went to a toxicologist to get tested to know the amounts and kinds of pollutants in her body. The film was clearly biased against Health Canada shown through the research and interviews and aimed at decreasing people’s faith in Health Canada and urging them to question decisions Health Canada makes.

The film brought up a matrix of sustainability problems generally having to do with chemicals in our environment that are affecting us harmfully. The film stated that many of the chemicals we are exposed to can be fought off by our body in low amounts but the amount to which we are being exposed [4 million tons of chemicals emitted in North America, which doesn’t include pesticides] our bodies cannot fight off. These pollutants are generally absorbed by fish and water but a major problem to the matrix is the way the testing/banning of pollutants occurs. The effects these pollutants can only be seen on large population and only when the people get very sick. With the example of the thyroid problems from the film, it was hard for them to be able to prove that all other factors were the same and that it was caused by the one connection they had in common. These chemicals cause allergies, asthma, neurological damage, and cancer. In Rosemont, Montreal, in an elementary school, 3 out of 18 students have very serious allergies and even more have been diagnosed with ADD due to flame retardants [PBDEs] which are found in high amounts in breast milk. In the Inuit population, there has been found to be high levels of mercury and PCB concentration coming from the large amounts of fish that they eat and the wind that carries the pollutants up the arctic. These chemicals are leading to ear infections and auditory problems as well as autoimmunity and hyper-sensitivity. These effects have not caused any of these pollutants to be banned by the government. The government has regulated the use of hormones in beef and Bestial A but the regulations that are set have higher levels than are shown to cause changes at the cellular level. 99% of children in Canada are exposed to insecticides through fruits and vegetables because the minimum standards are not as tight as those in the United States and European Union. Another problem in the matrix is the use of 3rd class land for toxic waste dumping. This waste dumping occurs near Indian reservations in many cases causing allergies to mosquitoes, asthma, decline of male births, and miscarriages. This decreased male birth is common across all industrialized countries. The pollutants act as estrogens decreasing fertilization in fish as well. In the area mentioned above about 1/3 of the fish were affected. Frogs are also affected by the pollutants and fertilizers from the corn and soy fields causing infertility. The disconnect between governmental policies and health effects is shown in the case that Health Canada disputes the risk of these pollutants upon the human and states that frogs and humans are different. The matrix also includes industry influence in decisions. The chemical atrazine, has not been banned because the industry is too important the government is not willing to make the decisions on their own. It brings up many issues on how science itself is a sustainability problem including, funding by corporation of research, leading to research only being done in certain areas with biased results, delayed effects of chemicals, that the population itself is not always individual, regulation after the population is exposed, doses [small vs. large have differing effects], the fact that Americans are stereotyped as “risk-takers”, and most of all causation versus correlation of adverse effects. The film showed the connection between laboratory tests and field tests in rats and frogs, and argued how the tests were not followed by Health Canada or another organization to do anything about it. It showed the disconnect between the tests and the policies.

A few of the convincing parts of the film were that the sources came from all types of people, doctors and researchers from the United States, Canada, and the European Union showing an un-biased view in that they were not all affiliated with one government. Government officials were also interviewed to provide contrasting points of view as well as both affected and unaffected individuals. Sources included indigenous people as well as urban and rural citizens. Another convincing aspect of the film was that it wasn’t afraid to bring up contradictory points, and show why they were not the case.

A part of the film that was not as convincing was the use of interviews of people who no longer had a job with the organization they were speaking about. It was hard to decipher whether they had a bone to pick with the institution [in this case Health Canada] or whether the argument they were making was legitimate.

The audience of the film “Homo-Toxicus” in my opinion was Canadian who are registered to vote. Though it was very informative for all people, it was directed to an older crowd especially because of the comments on the reproductive system and the way that the politics of Health Canada were incorporated into the movie. It was also good for other voting citizens of other countries because many of the sources were from other countries and provided supporting and contrasting information to what is going on in Canada. I thought that the film was very well done, there was a good combination between interviews, facts, and footage. I would have liked to see more on the storyline of the film about the woman getting tested for chemicals in her body and more details on the types, amounts, and where they might have come from.

The film proposes a few interventions to help deal with the matrix of problems that are stated. The first is that Health Canada needs to become stricter in its regulations. It suggests that the way for this to happen is for the citizens to become aware of the actions that are taken/not taken. These bans and regulations need to happen on a state-by-state level rather than a national level. This is partly happening in California in the United States and has the potential to happen in Canadian and across the States as well. In the United States focus is given to exposure studies of chemicals in order to test and ban them while in the European Union, focus is given to the structure of the chemical make-up which makes it less difficult for a chemical to be banned from use. The film is used as an educational tool and argues that the more people know about these problems, the more likely they are to be aware that they exist and do something about them. It also shows ways in which we can eat healthier, such as eating organic foods that are local in order to lower the amount of pesticides we are ingesting.

This film prompted me to look further into chemical screening and how easy it is for each of us to find how many toxic chemicals are in our body. One website I found [|ToxNet.com] allowed anyone to type in the name of a chemical and be able to see its chemical make-up and the parts per million that are ok in different types of animals if it has not been tested on humans. It was slightly difficult to navigate though, at least for me. I found that many toxic screens only work on chemicals that were ingested or acquired within a certain period of time making it hard to test for certain chemicals if exposure occurred many years ago. I also wanted to look more into the [|hormones in beef] and what these hormones entail. I found that the hormones include, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, and the synthetics zeranol, trenblorone,and melengesterol and increase the carass weight of the cow to add $80 in profit. Hormones have been found in beef that are 20x the normal amount. Another interesting note was that an eight-year old eating two hamburgers in a day could increase his total hormone levels by 10% because of the amounts of estradiol in the hamburgers.