The Bleeding Edge review: A well-intentioned, combative documentary about American medical device industry

Medicine is characteristically intrusive. The human body, often casually referred to as a machine, has been at the receiving end of centuries of varying degrees of medicinal intrusion. More often than not generous and curative in intent, we’ve read and learned about medical procedures from the past that appear downright horrific to the modern imagination. Especially in this day and age where advances in technology have rendered it more and more intimate with the passing day. Since we’ve accepted it as an essential ingredient of our lives, a documentary that cuts through the airbrushed fog of PR to rake up the dangers of medical device technology comes across as immediate, important and terrifying. The Bleeding Edge starts off with a few minutes of gently swaying green trees, blue skies and happy faces. The aesthetic closely resembles a promotional advertisement. But as soon as the stories start bleeding out from behind the faces, we begin confronting the endless pain and ignorance that gets airbrushed and swept under the carpet by medical device manufacturers in the United States. Throughout the hundred odd minutes of the film, we meet people who’ve suffered, and continue to suffer, due to the implantation of faulty devices. From hip replacement to permanent birth control, the toll that the innocent act of investing one’s faith in medical technology can take on someone’s life is explored through multiple testimonies. Families torn apart, divorces, sexual lives becoming nonexistent, nervous breakdowns; the list of negative effects is frankly too long to fit into a single article. [caption id=“attachment_4912551” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] A still from The Bleeding Edge. Netflix[/caption] Kirby Dick’s documentary positions itself avowedly on the side of the patients. But it never fails in its responsibility of conducting in-depth research and digging up relevant statistical information to make its case. Blow after blow is dealt to the FDA’s (Food and Drug Administration) monitoring system whose yawning loopholes ensure a windfall of profits for the manufacturers. The documentary exhibits ample evidence for a government agency-manufacturer nexus owing to individuals with their hands in both pies. All discussions of the scale of the injustice meted out to the sufferers will be inadequate unless you actually watch the documentary. As is always the case, the voices and cries of the common people get buried under the noise generated by PR and lobbying groups. But the people are fighting back. Armed with social media — another technology that has come to define our age, they’re raging a battle using their key strength: numbers. For as the statistics at the end of the film prove, the callousness and laziness displayed by the manufacturers in testing their products has created a problem of huge proportions. And when one good soul decides to retrieve the loudspeaker from the cupboard, tell their story and expose lies, others aggrieved soon join in. In due time, this mass of voices can make itself heard at the national level. It isn’t long before the media chorus joins in. There is an Angie (faulty permanent birth control device) and a Doctor Tower (hip replacement device) living not too far away from us. All it takes to spur them into action is a little push. The Bleeding Edge is set firmly in the United States. But its message is universal. The scenario it shows plays out in one of the most technologically advanced nations in the world. It is incumbent upon developing nations and their peoples to take note of the dangers of casual reliance on technology. In a country where the neighourhood chemist often doubles up as a doctor, we must remain alert to the potential harm that can accompany rapid advances in medical technology. Naturally, the significance of regulation and institutional safeguards cannot be stressed enough, especially in a country where literacy and health education still has a long way to go. Finally, citizen’s awareness of their rights and the need to recognise the importance of their voice and opinion. These are among the many lessons we take away from Dick’s well-meaning film. The Bleeding Edge is a well-intentioned, combative piece of work that is essential viewing for anyone associated with the health industry. But in a world growing increasingly reliant and comfortable with technology — whose pros, one might argue, may even outnumber its cons, it becomes an important film for all of us. Each passing day brings us closer to the pipe dream of living disease-free lives where we aren’t held back by the vagaries of old age. Living longer and younger, while not out of tune with humans’ earliest ambitions, doesn’t come without the hiccups that also accompany advances in technology. The message, therefore is clear: there is no substitute for vigilance and no error in the machine will ever be trivial. Whether it be the machinery of the state, its institutions or a humble joint replacement device that your friendly neighbourhood assured you has now been accepted world over.