SEVENTEEN MILLION:
BIOFILMS AND CHRONIC DISEASE IN AMERICA

Summary

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-acquired infections and almost twice that number will acquire sepsis, a dangerous blood infection. The majority of hospital infections involve bacterial biofilms reach into every part of the human body and into every area of specialized medicine.

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 myriad 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 with academic and clinical experts, as well as with patients affected by conditions caused by bacterial biofilms. By breaking down complex topics of disease to a human level, showing staggering statistics, and using high quality animations, the message becomes accessible, compelling and obvious: biofilm infections are a gargantuan problem that has been overlooked by American society. As a result of this indifference, we as a nation are paying a terrible, almost unfathomable price in terms of suffering, deaths and at least $100,000,000,000 in health care costs.

With the advent of new molecular diagnostics and a new disease treatment paradigm, Seventeen Million will effectively catalyze credible healthcare change by disseminating information that will reduce needless suffering, save lives and reduce the costs of health care.