Seventeen Million is an exploration of bacterial biofilm infections and how they cause debilitating illnesses for more than 17,000,000 Americans. People with subclinical infections suffer for months, years or even decades; others will lose life or limb because of the failure to treat chronic wounds or hospital acquired infections. More than 550,000 patients will lose their lives because of hospital infections; almost twice that number will acquire sepsis. The overwhelming majority of hospital infections involve bacterial biofilms and reach into every area of specialized medicine and into every part of the human body.
Paradoxically, the applications of biofilm eradication methods are slow to propagate into the many silos of western medicine. With patients and doctors in the dark about what is truly causing chronic diseases, millions of people remain undiagnosed and are denied effective treatments for their medical problems.
This ground-breaking documentary explores a new disease model on a scientific and human level. This film leverages interviews from top clinical experts with patients affected by bacterial biofilms to reach as wide an audience as possible. By breaking down complex topics of biofilm infections to a human level, showing staggering statistics, and using high quality animations, the message becomes accessible, compelling and obvious: biofilm infections are vastly gargantuan problem that has been overlooked by American society, and we as a nation are paying a terrible price.
However, with the advent of new molecular diagnostics, a new disease model, Americans can effectively catalyze credible healthcare change by disseminating information that will eliminate needless suffering, save lives and reduce the costs of health care.
Alternate Titles:
Still Sick After All These Years
Still Disabled
Why Cant I Get Better?
Why Is America Chronically Ill?
America, the Medicated