BarnardSarah_Homo+Toxicus

  //Homo Toxicus // | Carol Poliquin – Les Productions ISCA | 2008   //Homo Toxicus // is a film about the vast variety of chemicals that enter our environment every day. With over 100,000 newly synthesized chemicals since World War II, and most of them never tested, even ordinary, daily levels may be quite hazardous to our health and environment. The director, Carol Poliquin, decides to have her own blood taken to check the levels of contamination. When the test reveals over 110 contaminants in Carol’s blood, she goes on a search to hear from scientists and governments alike on the consequences of these chemicals. The film focuses on many of the severe implications these chemicals are having on our environment and our personal health. Newborns have been found to have 247 contaminants in their blood passed to them through their mother’s womb, and that doesn’t bode well for the planet we are handing down to the next generations.   //Homo Toxicus // draws out in a funny yet disturbing way many sustainability problems associated with the use of chemicals in today’s world. These chemicals create an entire matrix of problems, further complicated by the lack of diagnostic tools to tell exactly what chemicals or components might be causing the problems. Many ecological and health problems are addressed, but there are also large political and legal problems, tied closely to economic problems. Media plays a role in furthering some of these sustainability issues, and cultural/behavioral problems just continue to escalate them.  Many facts on environmental and health impacts were reported throughout the film. A few of the most surprising ones are enough to understand the severity of the problem, and they are backed by many, many more throughout //Homo Toxicus//. One example was the change in birth rates at an Indian reservation; there are currently double the amount of girls than boys in the schools. Their reservation is located in Chemical Valley, and it is believed that the chemicals have begun to effect testosterone levels, especially those in rural areas, resulting in a reduced boy-to-girl sex ratio. Another example would be the Inuit, who have the highest levels of mercury and PCB in their bodies in the world, all from a diet containing contaminated raw fish and caribou. Research suggests that a lot of chemicals are beginning to have effects even at low, everyday levels, where they were previously thought to be dangerous only in high doses. Many health standards are still set by research from the 1980s, and this causes another major sustainability problem. Scientific research itself can cause a problem, when different labs come up with different results and the governments and authorities don’t know who to believe, so they just choose to ignore the problem (this is very similar to what is currently going on with climate change, which we’ve talked a lot about in class).  Political and legal problems are closely linked to the problems within scientific research. Different countries disagree on safe levels of certain chemicals, while some studies show those same chemicals aren’t safe at any level. For example, the use of six hormones currently regulated by Canada in beef production have been banned in the European Union since 1988, claiming it was impossible to measure safe levels of the hormones. Health Canada, the group responsible for regulating chemicals in Canada, focuses on a “risk management” program, which considers economic ramifications over precautionary approaches. These differences in regulations and enforcements on chemicals between countries makes for many legal and political problems in enforcing any type of overall standards. Additionally, the economic problems associated with this are severe. Many times pesticides have not been banned because of the economic impact it would have on the industry. The industry itself, in many cases, has a significant influence on government, political, and economic issues. It just doesn’t seem right that a company looking out only for its best interests should have influence over deciding the health and safety of the people.  Finally, media and culture play a large role in the sustainability problems associated with chemical use. Chemicals are in almost everything we use today, and the media pushes this specific quality of life that our culture has come to expect. So many products used on a daily basis have toxic chemicals in them, but we have become so dependent on the product that we don’t know how to move away from it. Flame retardants for children’s pajamas, computers, and even stuffed animals contain PBDEs, of which concentrations are doubling in break milk every five years. While it’s the does that makes the poison, our culture has become dependent on these chemicals to make the products we think we need to survive, and it is unlikely we will be able to phase them out anytime soon. The matrix of problems surrounding the issue will continue to grow, and we will pass down a world to our children and grandchildren with an ever-growing number of unsafe chemicals.  <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> I found //Homo Toxicus// to be a very compelling and educational film. There was a lot of information in the film that I had never known about the vast array of chemicals in our daily environment. Even though there was an emphasis on scientific fact, it was relayed in a very persuasive way, not too dry or over the ordinary person’s head. The scene at the Indian Reservation was especially compelling, where the two women show the project they had worked on to show the wide variety of serious health effects or deaths that had occurred in their community, believed to be related to the chemicals from the industries located in Chemical Valley. Numbers on a population scale become too mind-blowing to understand, but seeing the effects the chemicals have had on this one community were amazing, where the two women knew all of the people who had been affected. <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> I also found the scenes with some of the researchers in Europe to be quite compelling. The scientific research they presented was very interesting, and although they threw out a huge list of numbers at one point, it was enough to get across the big picture: even at extraordinarily low levels, these chemicals are still dangerous. It was also interesting to note that babies being introduced to chemicals in the womb is a relatively recent phenomena, and that often the industries could help to prevent this, but choose profit instead. <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> //<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Homo Toxicus //<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> was extremely educational, and most parts of the film were incredibly persuasive. There were a few parts in talking about Health Canada that may have been the least compelling, with little information on some decision making processes regarding banning chemicals that the European Union had already banned. It would have been nice to know some more of the processes these governments go through in making these decisions. Obviously the point of these scenes was to “vilify” the Canadian government as avoiding the true issues surrounding these toxic chemicals, but I still thought they were the least compelling scenes of the movie. <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">As mentioned above, it would be interesting to research the process for banning and testing chemicals, and how these processes differ from country to country. The fact that testing is not required for many new products is appalling, and I would like to see the influence these industries actually have on the government and regulatory authorities who should be in charge of the safety and well-being of the public. It would also be interesting to see how much of the research that is done is performed by companies directly invested in the results. We’ve spoken before about industry research, and it seems like something that must be very prominent in this chemical field. Finally, I would be interested to see what options exist for attempting to reverse some of the trends we are currently seeing, especially those relating to the sex ratios of births. <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">**7. What audiences does the film best address? What kind of imagination is fostered in viewers? Do you think the film is likely to change the way viewers think about and act on environmental problems?** <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> The film best addresses the public sector and private scientist audiences. //Homo Toxicus// is obviously not trying to win over industry on any of these issues, but the public sector has a right to know about these concerns. The film does look at some of the issues from different sides, attempting to give an “everyman’s” point of view through scientific facts and research. Citizens from the United States and Canada would be especially interested in the way their regulations stack up to their counterparts in the European Union. It does seem that the film would focus people’s attention on the environmental problems, and possibly affect their actions in buying certain types of products. <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> While the film was very educational, there were not many points of intervention or action suggested by the film. Additional research was pushed as an important issue, as well as the role of governments in legislation and regulation. On an individual level, however, there were not really any suggestions on how to avoid these chemicals. A good example was the Toxic buffet, where people began to realize that it’s become risky business to eat, but what other choices do we have? The only options individuals seem to have are to use their power of consumerism to force the industries to be more careful about what they are putting in their products. <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> //<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Homo Toxicus //<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> may have benefited from some more large-picture recaps, but overall it was extremely educational. I learned a lot from this film that I hadn’t heard before, I just wish it could have talked more about the general types of problems the chemicals were causing, instead of focusing mainly on specific examples. Also, some more points of personal intervention, what we can do on an individual scale, would have helped the viewer to better connect with the ideas and pursue their consequences in their everyday life.
 * <span style="color: #404040; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Sarah Barnard | Film Annotation 4 | //Homo Toxicus// ** <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">
 * <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">1. Title, director and release year **
 * 2. What is the central argument or narrative of the film?**
 * 3. What sustainability problems does the film draw out?**
 * 4. What parts of the film did you find most persuasive and compelling? Why?**
 * 5. What parts of the film were you not compelled or convinced by?**
 * 6. What additional information does this film compel you to seek out? Where do you want to dig deeper and what connections do you want to make with other issues, factors, problems, etc.?**
 * 8. What kinds of action or points of intervention are suggested by the film?**
 * 9. What could have been added to this film to enhance its environmental educational value?**