Why this film is important
Two hundred and seventy thousand women will contract breast cancer this year. Forty thousand will die of it; every 13 minutes we will lose another woman to the disease. This documentary film makes these statistics real by following one woman who is diagnosed, treated and recovers from breast cancer. Robin demands to know why she got breast cancer, posing questions about their exposure to environmental toxics. Her intimate story brings the visually hidden experience of breast cancer into light, and motivates us to ask why so much illness and why don't we know how to stop it?
View the trailer
quicktime trailer - (medium)
In 1980, the famous poet Audre Lourde wrote from her hospital bed:
Cancer is not just another degenerative and unavoidable disease of the ageing process. It has distinct and identifiable causes, and these are mainly exposures to chemicals of physical agents in the environment.
In 1998, scientist and writer Sandra Steingraber wrote:
Banned pesticides, like fugitives from justice, have not entirely disappeared. We have forgotten about them, but they are still among us. They frequent foreign ports. They languish underground. But they are beginning to surface again in the tissues of women with breast cancer...
Why Prevention?
Preventing
breast cancer rather than just treating it is difficult. Brave
individuals have led this movement. They have spoken out about the
causes of the growing breast cancer epidemic. Rachel Carson said
in 1961:
Today we find our world filled with cancer-producing agents. An
attack on cancer that is concentrated wholly or even largely on therapeutic
measures...will fail because it leaves untouched the great reservoirs of carcinogenic
agents which would continue to claim new victims...
Possibilities for making our world less toxic and safer abound. Breast
cancer rates can be decreased.
Watch this film and find out how.
Calendar
| event date | What it's about | where |
|---|---|---|
| 07.08.08 | Scene selects from No Family History shown at the Prince Theater in Philadelphia as a part of the "Philadelphia Filmmaker Experience" hosted by the Philadelphia Film Office. | Prince Theater About Event |
| 11.14.2007 | Appearance on Channel 9 News (D.C., Maryland and Virginia) with Andrea Roane interviews Dr. Sabrina McCormick about the film - - (windows media file format) | Watch the interview here |