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Forum » Additional Suggested Movies » Unit 1 » Under Our Skin
Under Our Skin
LunowDate: Thursday, 2011-06-23, 7:33 PM | Message # 1
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Under Our Skin

In the 1970s, a mysterious and deadly illness began infecting children in a small town in Connecticut. Today it's a global epidemic. A real-life thriller, this shocking festival hit exposes the controversy surrounding chronic Lyme disease. Following the stories of individuals fighting for their lives, director Andy Abrahams Wilson reveals with beauty and horror a natural world out of balance and a human nature all too willing to put profits before patients. - from Netflix

One of the central questions we will try to answer this year involves the relationship between people and the environment in which they live. One answer is that people and their culture are a product of the environment in which they live. This is called environmental determinism. The other school of thought is possiblism - a theory that says that people can be limited by their physical environments, but that anything is possible. This movie deals with the rapid spread of Lyme Disease. This disease started in New England and has spread around the whole country and even internationally. In our first unit we study the ways in which phenomena (such as religion, fashion, culture, ideas, goods, and even diseases spread). The spread of phenomena is called diffusion, and this is illustrated in the movie.

This movie also deals with a disease. In unit 2 we will study the Epidemiological Transition Model, which traces the evolution of diseases through human history. This movie will also address how publicly funded research into a cure for Lyme's Disease is being taken over by private corporations that are trying to generate private profits off tax-payer funded work. This will fit into our fourth unit. Finally, this documentary will also raise questions about how human encroachment into the natural environment has altered the human-environmental relationship.[size=14]
 
18mnguyen11Date: Monday, 2015-04-06, 7:02 PM | Message # 2
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Mimi Nguyen- Period 4

It's crazy how fast a deadly sickness can easily spread or diffuse from such small things such as ticks. After watching this movie, it made me be aware of the importance of hygenie and how something should we treated right away before it starts to infect hundreds of people worldwide. The plot revolves around six individuals who report chronic symptoms of Lyme disease, also known as borreliosis.It is one of the fastest growing epidemics of our time. One of the conflicts that infuriated me in the documentary, "Under Our Skin" is how our health care system fails to address the situation. Futhermore, as patients battle for their lives, many of them are told it's simply "all in their heads". It made me sad that the problem with treating Lyme disease is that it is difficult to diagnose using conventional lab tests, therefore causing the epidemic to diffuse and become a larger problem. I have learned that diffusion is a key concept within this documentary and how the epidemiological transition occurred as a country undergoes the process of modernization from developing nation to developed nation status.


I would rate this documentary 5 stars because it gave a better understanding of Lyme disease while applying the concepts of diffusion, environmental determinism, and the epidemiological transition model. I also got to learn an interesting fact that, “Lyme disease infects 300,000 people a year. 10 times more Americans than previously reported”.(statistic proving how Lyme disease is a serious issue in the United States and how crazy it spreads)


Message edited by 18mnguyen11 - Tuesday, 2015-04-07, 9:07 PM
 
18jnguyen9Date: Sunday, 2015-04-12, 12:30 PM | Message # 3
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Jenifer Nguyen - Period 5 

During the movie, six individuals are infected with Lyme disease. The Lyme disease is mainly caused by being infected with bacteria from tick bites. Each individual struggle as doctors have no clue to why they have certain symptoms(weakened limb, fatigue headaches, rashes, and etc.) and how it can be treated. The film is connected to AP Human Geography as it illustrates the concepts of the epidemiological transition model and how it is being used. "Under Our Skin" emphasizes the fact how the society's healthcare system is broken. They are unaware of this disease and are not willing to help profit the patients that need the care. 

After watching this movie, I have realized how it is important to get a check-up each year to keep my body safe, and to get treatments before it is too late, if needed. It is inappropriate for doctors, or other people, to think that people who are infected with Lyme disease are just making it up in their head. It is very shocking for the individuals to fight for their lives without being treated properly. I would rate this movie a 4 for the thriller in real life.
 
ridgeluispenamoraDate: Sunday, 2015-04-12, 4:56 PM | Message # 4
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Ridgeluis Penamora - Period 6

    
This documentary entitled "Under Our Skin" emphasizes the gruesome and deadly effects of not understanding our environment as well as the sheer ignorance shown towards the diffusion of chronic lyme disease. Before watching this film, I had little knowledge on lyme disease because today there are many treatments for this illness that are safe and effective; but only about 4 and a 1/2 decades ago doctors believed that lyme disease was a made-up disease that only existed in the mind. This is extremely scary to me because it was only recently that America realized that these "made-up" psychological illnesses were actual diseases and were destroying the lives of many people, most notably in this film 6 individuals. During the movie I was shown the struggles and challenges these infected people endured, including symptoms of cognitive loss in addition to physical distress. It also briefly touched on the misdiagnosis of lyme disease in the first half of the movie, and how doctors were baffled by the so-called "mystery disease" until Willy Burgdorfer discovered lyme bacteria, and even then were there little knowledge on this bacteria most commonly found in ticks. The second half of the film focuses on Joseph Jemsek and his controversial or even unorthodox prescriptions of long-term antibiotics for chronic lyme disease. Patients treated with these antibiotics reported hallucinations and nightmare-like episodes. Jemsek was sued by an insurance company and filed for bankruptcy as well as closing his medical practices, which made me very happy and relieved for once in the film. Towards the end of the documentary, Richard Blumenthal stated that the IDSA's lyme disease guidelines were flawed; which surprised me when the Journal of the  American Medical Association (JAMA) and Forbes regarded the public claim as an attack from public officials towards the society of medicine.
          Overall I would give this movie a rating of 10/10 because it adequately addresses the negligence of lyme disease in the 1970's. Furthermore, this film correlates to human geography in terms of environmental determinism, possiblism, and the epidemiological transition model. But what truly hindered the curing of lyme disease was the commercialization of medical discoveries that scientists and doctors were patenting and making private the information that they probably discovered under the federal paycheck. In closing, this documentary definitely opened my eyes to the medical epidemic that is powered by money and profit, given by the example of lyme disease in the United States.
 
17jbachDate: Thursday, 2015-12-31, 11:53 PM | Message # 5
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Judy Bach Period 3

"Under Our Skin" is a documentary about chronic Lyme disease. It is a mysterious and deadly illness that started to infect people in Connecticut. This documentary follows six individuals who are affected/infected with Lyme disease. Lyme disease is proven to be one of the most controversial and fast growing epidemic in the past few decades. However, it is sad to see that it is also labeled as a "psychosomatic disease". This documentary just shows me how the healthcare system is inadequate and broken. "Under Our Skin" really showed how terrible and sad a disease can nearly destroy and largely affect a person's life. This documentary related to Unit 1 of APHUG. It correlates to the ideas of epidemiological transition model, a theory that states there is a distinct cause of death in each stage of the demographic transition model and possibilism, a theory that states people can change the environment in which they live. I rate this movie a 4/5 because it gave me a better understanding and perspective of how people's lives can be harmed by diseases if they are not being treated properly.
 
19yacevedoDate: Sunday, 2016-04-17, 6:27 PM | Message # 6
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Yatzari Acevedo /Period 3

In the documentary, Under Our Skin, a deadly disease spread very rapidly and infected various people around the country. Dana starts off by saying "Pain, Pain, Pain..." Jordan, a ranger from from Nevada City, explained how it took 5 doctors to realize that he had Lyme Disease despite the overwhelming evidence. Doctors have always told patients they're fine, that the feelings are just imaginations or blamed them for wanting attention but they knew it inside that something was wrong with them. The victims of this lethal disease were misdiagnosed with ADD, chronic fatigue syndrome, and other illnesses they didn't have. What the medics didn't realize was they had a new enemy in town. "They were pulling anything out of their hat that they could," says one of the misdiagnosed ladies.

Although the signs of Lyme Disease were apparent before the 1970's a special case caught the eyes of the media. A mother in Connecticut called the state's health department to try and give some insight on a new and mysterious disease in the area. Willy Burgdorfera PhD discovered the Lyme bacteria. Lyme bacteria can drill through tissue and get most anywhere in the body, starting with a tick bite. The centers for disease control reported over 35,000 new cases in 1981 but since the disease is so overlooked they admitted that the real number of cases may have been closer to 420,000 making it more probable than AIDS. IN the Connecticut the cases went up 41% in a single year! The diffusion of the disease was considered an Epidemic after the rise of cases by 50%

The epidemiological transition model closely relates to the DTM used in the second unit of AP Hug. Since the CDR is high in a country in stage 2 there's a higher possibility of epidemics like Lyme Disease. Jordan, the park ranger continues to say that being affected by Lyme disease is like natures way of telling humans that theyre hurting the environment and that they need to change the ways of their lives before their end. The concept of possiblism, that the environment, in this case bacteria in the deer ticks, may limit the actions of people but that we can overcome it is displayed in the 6 people who we see in this documentary. 

Overall this documentary was very interesting, informative, and insightful. I would rate it a 4/5 stars. It relates to AP Human Geography's ideas of possiblism, diffusion, detuminism, and the epidemic transition model.


Message edited by 19yacevedo - Sunday, 2016-04-17, 8:28 PM
 
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