Under Our Skin

Documentary. 1 hr. 44 min. Not rated.

Watch the trailer!

You can watch the trailer for Under Our Skin on this page below.

Synopsis for Under Our Skin: UNDER OUR SKIN is a powerful and often terrifying look not only at the science and politics of the disease, but also the personal stories of those whose lives have been affected and nearly destroyed. From a few brave doctors who risk their medical licenses, to patients who once led active lives but now can barely walk, the film uncovers a hidden world that will astound viewers. While exposing a broken health care and medical research system, the film also gives voice to those who believe that instead of a crisis, Lyme is simply a "disease du jour," over diagnosed and contributing to another crisis: the looming resistance of microbes and ineffectuality of antibiotics. As suspenseful and hair-raising as a Hollywood thriller, UNDER OUR SKIN is sure to get under yours.

A dramatic and frightening expose about how our corrupt medical system is failing to address one of the most serious epidemics of our times.

A dramatic tale of microbes, medicine and money, UNDER OUR SKIN plays like a taut thriller?but it is our own lives that may be at stake. This riveting film, a documentary with the propulsion of a narrative, investigates the untold story of Lyme Disease, an emerging epidemic larger than AIDS. Each year thousands go undiagnosed or misdiagnosed, told that their symptoms are "all in their head." Following the stories of patients and physicians as they battle for their lives and livelihoods, the film brings into focus a haunting picture of our health care system and its ability to cope with a silent and growing terror, and the even more terrifying response the medical status quo has given it.?

Background:

In the early 1970's, a mysterious ailment was discovered among children living around the town of Lyme, CT. What was first diagnosed as isolated cases of juvenile arthritis, eventually became known as Lyme disease, an illness triggered by spiral-shaped bacteria, similar to the microorganisms that cause syphilis. Today, many of those untreated will suffer chronic debilitating illness. Some unknowingly will pass the disease on to their unborn children. Many will lose their livelihoods, and still others, their lives.

Yet Lyme disease is one of the most misunderstood and controversial illnesses of our time. Difficult to test accurately, tens of thousands of people go undiagnosed?or misdiagnosed with such conditions as fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, autism, MS and ALS. The Centers for Disease Control admits that more than 300,000 people may acquire Lyme disease each year, a number greater than AIDS, West Nile virus, and swine and avian flu combined. And yet, the medical establishment?with profound influence from the insurance industry?has stated that the disease is easily detectable and treatable, and that ?chronic Lyme? is some other unrecognized syndrome or a completely psychosomatic disorder.

DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT

My nightmarish journey into the depths of the Lyme disease controversy started by accident. A friend of mine in San Francisco was getting sicker and sicker with severe and progressive neurological illness. She was first diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and then Lou Gehrig?s disease (which is basically a death sentence). But she kept looking for possible explanations and, finally, was diagnosed with Lyme disease. Lyme disease?! I recalled that my twin sister in Upstate New York suffered from it years ago. I remember she was always tired and achy, even though she looked just fine. So I never took it seriously, like most people, and I believed it was just an East Coast disease, if a real disease at all.

So I was shocked that Lyme disease could be so debilitating, even life-threatening. I discovered that the prevalence of Lyme disease in the U.S. may be at least ten times greater than HIV, West Nile virus (and now swine flu) combined. Like its genetic cousin, the "great imitator" syphilis, it mimics other illnesses, including chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, MS, ALS, Alzheimer's and autism. I learned it could be transmitted from mother to child in utero and that sexual transmission has not been ruled out.

Worse still: standard tests seem hopelessly inaccurate, and most physicians are untrained to diagnose or treat the illness. Furthermore, physicians who do take on chronic Lyme patients risk the suspension of their medical licenses. On the patient side, I found variations of the same story repeated thousand-fold: doctor after doctor, years of misdiagnoses, hundreds of thousands of dollars exhausted, denial of insurance coverage, accusations of hypochondria and, finally if ever, a long road back to health.

What was going on? What if my friend had stopped after the ALS diagnosis? Would she still be alive today? What if my sister didn?t persevere until she proved wrong those (like myself) who thought it was all in her head? Sometimes I think the film is my way of making penance for the way I treated my sister when she was sick. After all, William Osler, considered to be the father of modern medicine, once said, "If you listen carefully to the patient they will tell you the diagnosis." Our patriarchal medical system is coming up against its limits of knowledge and arrogance, threatened in good measure by "internet activists" (mostly women) who are taking their family's healthcare into their own hands, sharing community and resources, and demanding help.

After four years of research and production?and over 375 hours of footage, what we uncovered is a chilling tale of microbes, medicine and money. Deregulation and lack of oversight of scientific research and conflicts of interest in medicine are poisoning healthcare, denying our citizens health, and costing our citizenry profound loss of productivity and resources. We need an overhaul of our medical research, health delivery and insurance systems. Lyme disease is the canary in the coalmine and a case study for what's wrong and needs to be fixed. UNDER OUR SKIN is an important contribution to the current national debate about healthcare reform.

At the epicenter, a tiny, but larger-than-life microbe looms, providing a powerful symbol for an issue that is hidden and lurking, so small yet so big, so real but unrecognized. What has gotten under our skin is not just a microorganism, but medicine itself, and a poisonous system which has abandoned some of the most needy. Our own human skin is a microcosm of the skin of the earth, and the extent to which the earth's body is out of balance, so is our own. Nature is context but also content.

I want to show the horror of an illness and an ill system that too long has been ignored. But I also want to show the human and natural beauty right next to it. Sometimes indistinguishable, the beauty and horror are connected. If UNDER OUR SKIN merely perpetuates the idea that the natural world is perilous, or that human nature is corrupt, we miss out on the beauty that surrounds us. On the other hand, if we are lulled by convention or don't look below the surface, we risk infection by the equally dangerous maladies of ignorance and indifference.

-Andy Abrahams Wilson