![]() This disclaimer, however, is made necessary due to just how much we are shown those patients and hear their stories in the documentary. That clearly happened and, without question, is a tragedy. No patient should lose trust in the healthcare system, their doctors, or the companies developing technologies that are supposed to help them. ![]() For many, no lawsuit will preserve what they’ve lost or make up for the suffering they’ve endured. The medical industry has utterly and obviously failed them and that is truly a catastrophe. Let me start with my disclaimer: My intention is not to come across as uncaring or cold-hearted to the suffering of the many patients featured in the documentary. I would also encourage you to listen to the Mike on Medtech podcasts where we discuss a number of issues brought up in the film. For those who have not had the opportunity to view it, I would certainly encourage you to do so. Bleeding edge documentary tv#Here’s hoping The Bleeding Edge gets the right attention on a decidedly unsexy topic.Ĭlick here to sign up for our weekly film and TV newsletter.Recently, I watched the controversial medical device industry documentary, “The Bleeding Edge,” featured on Netflix. There is nothing more upsetting than listening to a charming Southern woman say the words, “My colon’s falling out!” Worse yet are the profit-hungry companies that have been able to slide by unnoticed for so long. Dick exposes so much that I yelled, “Oh, my God!” multiple times while watching. The medical device industry is the least understood and regulated in the FDA umbrella. The director backs up all these anecdotes with some hard facts about the FDA approval process for medical devices, which - even according to a former head of the department - is a broken system. If a completely healthy man with medical training can go so quickly from zero to delusional, what of the millions of other Americans with cobalt in their bodies? What of the injured vets already fighting PTSD who live with an implant that could be poisoning them? What are the metal plates and screws in my own ankle made of, and why didn’t I know to ask? He begins questioning established medicine’s embrace of cobalt implants upon the removal of his, every neurological issue he had developed disappeared. These were so severe that he had a complete mental breakdown in a hotel room, smashing things and scrawling cryptic messages on the walls. Neither woman’s story takes a turn for the better, but it’s the Latina woman whose entire life - and the lives of her daughters - get smashed all because of one doctor not taking her concerns seriously.ĭick seems to anticipate that viewers - just like doctors - may be conditioned to think women overexaggerate their pain, so at the fifteen-minute mark of the film he jumps into the story of a respected older white male doctor who got a cobalt hip joint and began suffering from neurological issues. ![]() ![]() Another woman, a Latina account executive with four children, relays a frighteningly similar story, only with the added layer of racism her doctor told her he assumed Latinas just bled more than white women did. As the documentary jumps around to different people, devices and experts, we return again and again to the horrifying story of this mail carrier, who came to find that her body was rejecting the coil, which led her to nearly bleed to death. We meet a mail carrier from upstate New York whose doctor sold her on Essure years ago. The film, which premieres on Netflix on July 27, traverses the spectrum of medical devices but opens and closes on one particular item, Essure, a metal coil that’s inserted into the fallopian tubes for sterilization purposes. In the cases Dick investigates, those complications become a ripple effect of lives ruined by untested but FDA-approved devices. Bleeding edge documentary series#Through a series of personal stories from both qualified medical professionals and laypeople, the film explores just what exactly the word complications means on a device’s warnings. ![]() Prepare to be scared shitless of vaginal mesh or high-tech surgery robots. Courtesy of NetflixĬontinuing their legacy of equally infuriating and enlightening documentaries, the producer-director team of Amy Ziering and Kirby Dick poke into the archaic and futile FDA approval systems for medical devices with their film The Bleeding Edge. In Netflix’s documentary “The Bleeding Edge,” Ana Fuentes is one of the women whose story is told following her experience with Essure, a metal coil that’s inserted into the fallopian tubes for sterilization purposes. ![]()
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