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“What if the greatest chemical disaster of our time is not an oil spill or a nuclear meltdown?” What if it’s toxic chemicals in the products we use everyday on our bodies, in our homes, and outside?” – The Human Experiment
This documentary, by KTF films, is about the extremely high-stakes battle being played out globally, where people are waking up from the stench of chemicals, emanating around them, and these same people are fighting to protect people’s health from the thousands of untested chemicals in our everyday products: going by the trailer, it’s well worth watching. Here, from the Safer Chemical’s blog, is some of what helped this film come about:
“Dana Nachman was a producer at NBC when she wrote a story on how to make your home less toxic. “It was something I never gave an ounce of thought to before,” she says. In her research, she learned not only about the tens of thousands of chemicals lurking in everyday products, but that most of those chemicals have never been independently tested for their safety. Meanwhile, rates of tough-to-explain health problems like breast cancer, autism, and infertility — many of which have been linked to toxic exposure — are on the rise. A mother of young children, Nachman found this upsetting enough to turn it into the subject of her next documentary (her first two films tackled wrongful convictions and terrorism). The Human Experiment, narrated by Sean Penn and co-directed by Don Hardy, follows three families motivated by health problems to fight the powerful chemical industry lobby on behalf of everyone’s safety.”
The makers of the film have done a great job highlighting important health issues that are turning out to be common to many people today; and by doing that, they are bringing to light many other health issues, interrelated to one another via chemicals: Cancer, reproductive problems, all the immune compromised disorders; such as mould illness, chemical sensitivities, chemical injuries, Multiple Chemical Sensitivities, Chronic Fatigue and many more of the ever prevalent yet invisible illnesses too. Issues that, in some countries, get swept up into controversy and arguments; therefore, hiding the essence of the problem: the people who are suffering on a daily basis, and the cause: unregulated chemicals. I’m wondering if obesity will be covered; you know with all the corn syrup and artificial sugar theories that are ricocheting around out there? It’s unjust for the issue of obesity to be blamed on ‘fat people’ and ‘fat children’ with a general consensus that, “Oh, they just overeat!” Instead of asking what is causing this epidemic in the west? Could it be the chemical composition of the foods? So, yeh, I hope that’s covered too.
Another thing I loved about the trailer is how the focus is on our children: there are so many mothers and fathers united in outrage and disbelief over the state of chaos within the whole chemical-companies-self-regulation caper that’s causing so many problems for us—on a global scale. (Us Aussies are a bit behind in the regulations of chemicals but when we catch up, we catch up fast. Just look at us leading the race against the tobacco companies (far more so than the French, although their advertising tactics are to be revered: people no longer want to give head to Big Tobacco! (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, check it out for yourself.)))
Dana Nachmann, one of the Directors of The Human Experiment had this to say in an interview about her inspiration behind the film:
“I am a journalist and a mom I was assigned to do piece for NBC in 2009 about how to limit toxic chemicals in the home. It was through researching that story that I found out that most consumer products do not get tested for their safety before being put on the market. I thought this couldn’t really be true, but after looking into it I found out this was the shocking reality. I went through a complete freak out at first, which is what happens to most moms when they learn about this issue. I was worried about all of the ways my kids had been exposed to potentially dangerous chemicals because I was completely ignorant about this issue. I was pregnant with my third child and I realized that things in our family had to change and things in our country had to change. That’s why I wanted to make this movie to turn that fear into empowerment, not just for me but for all the moms and dads who would one day be able to watch the film and help turn this issue around once and for all.”
Here’s the comment I left for the makers of The Human Experiment.
This is so good. Thank you so much for making this. I’m going to be posting it on my blog where I blog about living a ‘normal’ life, and going to Uni while being sensitive to chemicals. I’ve had this for 9 years; for five of them I lived in isolation and, luckily, I recovered. Only to resume a normal life and now, I’m sicker than ever. It’s so obvious that chemicals can cause so many problems; and it’s so obvious that letting companies flood the market with them, only to remove them when we get sick is just plain wrong…
My character limit ran out, but what else I’d like to add, is a set of principles that I bang on about all the time [banging gets louder]: The Burden of Proof, and the Precautionary Principle. At the moment, we, the consumers, carry the burden of proof. Meaning that, if a product or it’s ingredients makes us ill, and we can prove that, then the product will either be taken of the market, or the ingredients replaced. However, if our governments made it mandatory for those companies to apply the Precautionary Principle instead, then all the harmful products and all their toxic ingredients would have to be proven safe, before they were actually allowed out on the market. Then, all the children, men and woman who get sick from these type of ingredients will have a better quality of life; and the people who are yet to get sick, won’t!
How many people need to become chemically injured or sensitised to these toxic chemicals before this happens? How many people will be told they have a ‘chemical allergy’, therefore, laying the blame on their own health, rather than the chemicals they have been constantly exposed too? As they say in the trailer, “low levels, constant chemical exposure effecting everyone on the planet…” If that, right there, is not a human experiment then I don’t know what is. So I guess, I’ll have to watch the movie, and find out exactly what else is; because going be the trailer, the suggestion is, there are plenty more. So, hello there, all you Guinea pigs and Lab Monkeys out there. Are you going to just sit there and let Big Chemical decide which chemicals are safe for you (your kids, or future kids?), and at what levels?
“The film follows a band of unlikely activists who are fighting back. Ranging from a conservative businessman to a teenage radical, they are staking reputation, career and future in this battle to protect our health. They’ll go head-to-head with the powerful and well-funded chemical industry to uncover a system that’s been hidden from consumers, where science is for sale and million-dollar PR campaigns keep dangerous products on the shelves. What will it take to stop this vast human experiment before it’s too late for our health?”
More from The Safer Chemicals Blog:
“We hope The Human Experiment inspires people to join your national movement around the safety of chemicals. We’re finishing up the movie now so before it comes out we would love people to share the trailer and create excitement for the film’s release next year. We want to get the word out that once and for all we are going to elevate this issue to the national level. We need immediate action from all of us so we can protect our children, and their children, and their children. It’s evident that if we don’t act on this, companies will continue working in the easiest way possible and that means that they won’t test their chemicals for safety and they won’t switch out dangerous chemicals with safer ones. We want our health and safety to be of concern to companies, not just their bottom line.”
Watch the trailer for The Human Experiment:
Only drawback here is the music; it’s so dramatic and hyperbolic. I think the facts speak for themselves without the drama chiming in over the top of them. This is not fiction; it’s real, and the music kind of made it kind of movie like, which may work for some people, but not me: I think our senses have become numb when it comes to watching dramatic representations of anything: fiction or not.
And, if you’d like to know more, you can visit The Human Experiment’s Facebook page, here
Or visit The Human Experiment’s page: www.thehumanexperimentmovie.com
More Relating to The Human Experiment
Man, I was SO excited about this, then I watched the trailer and you’re right – way too dramatic. The music and editing are really scare-tactic-y and I think it sort of looks like a wild crazy conspiracy theory. It doesn’t look real. I hope the film is more down to earth.