"Kesällä 2006 sisareni Lori sairastui oireisiin joiden syytä ei 10 kk myöhemminkään kyetty diagnosoimaan lopullisesti. Yhtenä päivänä aiemmin täysin terve ja aktiivinen sisareni meni tajuttomaksi. Lori hakeutui hoitoon. Lääkärin mukaan oireet viittasivat Guillain Barreen. Hänelle aloitettiin kallis suonensisäinen immmunoglobuliinihoito (IVIG) jonka tarkoituksena on vahvistaa elimistön vastustuskykyä taudinaiheuttajia vastaan. Kuukauden hoidon jälkeen Lorin tilanne kuitenkin vain paheni. Lori menetti toisen jalan toimintakyvyn ja myös kädet heikkenivät. Diagnoosit vaihtelivat; MS, Guillain Barre, ALS, borrelioosi, lupus ja jälleen borrelioosi ja ALS. Yhden lääkärin mukaan kaikkihan kuolevat joskus.
Lori tunsi naapurustostaan useita henkilöitä joilla oli diagnosoitu MS, Guillain Barre, ALS, fibromyalgia, borrelioosi. Vastikään yhden ystävän oireiden kerrottiin johtuvan MS-taudista. Lukuisat samankaltaiset sairaustapaukset eivät voineet olla sattumaa.
Tuohon aikaan en tiennyt paljoakaan borrelioosista. Myöhemmin minulle selvisi että hoitamattomana tauti voi johtaa sokeuteen, aivokalvontulehduksiin, niveltulehduksiin, fatiikkiin ja muihin vakaviin oireisiin. Miksi lääkärit eivät kirjoita antibiootteja?
Olimme erittäin huolestuneita Lorin tilanteesta. Huolestuimme entisestään kun käsitimme että sisareni sairaus olisi mahdollisesti voitu estää ja se on aiheutettu tahallisesti kansallisen turvallisuuden ja tieteen nimissä. Minulla oli useita kysymyksiä ja halusin saada niihin vastauksen."
Elokuvan trailerin voi käydä katsomassa sivulla www.undertheeightball.com
In the summer of 2006 my sister Lori was afflicted with an illness that, ten months later, has yet to be definitively diagnosed. Less than one year ago she had full function of her body, regularly riding bicycles, swimming and gardening with her son Jackson. One day, while helping Jackson onto his bicycle her leg gave way beneath her and she collapsed. Although it felt no different it just wouldn?t respond. She quickly sought treatment for what she thought was simply a pinched nerve. However, after seeing a specialist she was told that due to the quickly lost muscle function Guilian Barre Syndrome, a rare autoimmune disease, could be the culprit. She was started on a rigorous and extremely expensive course of intravenous immunoglobulin, or IVIG, which boosts antibodies to help the good guys fight the bad guys. But why after a month of treatments, when improvements should be seen in a few weeks, was Lori not getting better but getting worse?Countless hours and myriad visits to Munson Medical Center in Traverse City, University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and other traditional and homeopathic specialists only fueled confusion and frustration. Lori soon lost function in her other leg and motion in her hands deteriorated. Finally, after months of testing, poking, scraping, and analyzing, the diagnoses began arriving. They seemed forced and without tangible evidence, some symptoms conflicting with others: Guilian Barre Syndrome, Multiple Sclerosis, Lupus, Lyme disease, Lou Gehrig?s disease, then Lyme disease again, Lou Gehrig?s disease again. Once being told by her neurologist that ?Everyone dies?. During one visit to the doctor?s we crossed paths with a friend who had recently been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. What were the odds that two people who knew each other would contract similar disease in such a short time? we began to dig a little deeper. Lori realized that she knew of five people in her neighborhood that had been diagnosed with MS, ALS, fibromyalgia or a similar degenerative disease. This could not be a coincidence. Two diagnoses took rein: Lou Gehrig's disease or ALS, incurable and fatal, and Lyme disease, an easily treatable and often durable ailment. At the time my knowledge of Lyme was the same as others --What?s Lyme? A disease -- How do you get it? Ticks ? What does it do? Makes you sick. Right? ? Well, Lyme disease can be hard to diagnose with its vague flu-like symptoms. However, when Lori described a bite she had that was surrounded with Lyme?s trademark round red rash, commonly called a ?bulls-eye?, why didn?t doctors start her on a routine regimen of antibiotics? If untreated Lyme?s can cause debilitating arthritis and joint swelling, meningitis, blindness, fatigue, droopy eyes and other serious conditions. Why wouldn?t doctors prescribe the harmless antibiotics? We were all very scared at what was happening to Lori and we had discovered, but even more frightening was the possibility that this was something that could have been prevented.... or worse that it was intentional in the name science and National Security... I had questions... many questions. And I'd be damned if they went unanswered.
ELOKUVA: "UNDER THE EIGHT BALL"
Valvojat: Jatta1001, Borrelioosiyhdistys, Bb
Lori kuoli borreliabakteerin aiheuttamiin oireisiiin v. 2008.
Allaolevassa artikkelissa on 18.11.2009 kirjoitettu arvostelu borrelioosielokuvasta:
""Under the eight ball" on älykäs elokuva jossa arvioidaan kriittisesti meitä kaikkia koskettavaa aihetta. Elokuvan katsoneet, näkevät vastaisuudessa punkit/borrelioosin, perheen ja hallituksen uudesta näkökulmasta. Elokuvan lopussa kahden borrelioosia sairastavan lapsen äiti kertoo lasten sairaudesta ja sen aiheuttamista peloista. Elokuvan jälkeen jää miettimään: Miksi tällaisen kärsimyksen sallitaan tapahtuvan aina vain uudelleen"?
Under the Eight Ball
Documentary Review by Joseph Robinson
November 18, 2009
Every so often a documentary film comes along that is so surprising and inspiring that it has the nagging affect of entering into the deepest hallows of a post-modern cynical mind and acknowledging all that is there. But what ends up so shocking is how in this treatise to expose the evil doing of mankind at its worst is a love so profound as to move your soul despite the horrors of ?the truth.?
Tim Grey and his girlfriend/film partner Breanne Russell direct this documentary tour de force in as a personal of a journey as one can image. This is true documentary story of the bonds of love within a family during the tragic discovery and untimely illness and demise of Mr. Grey?s Sister ? Lori Hall Steele. The tragic illness and unfortunate end is told and filmed as unflinching and honest as one can bear. As witnessed by Grey/Russell?s most telling camera, you travel through an earnest and personal review of her life, the struggle to determine the illness that has its grips on her, and then ultimate journey to the end of her life ? and beyond.
Grey/Russell and Lori Hall Steele?s family are then left in the grief stricken state of asking why?
Why indeed.
From this tragic inspiration is born the question of why? Why did this illness occur? What caused the health concerns from the beginning? What was the troubled medical industry responsible for? What role did the environment play? What role did the fact that Lori Hall Steele ran out of insurance play in this tragedy? And finally, what role did pre-communist China, Nazi Germany, the Cold War, and the United States Government have in all this?
That?s right, from this simple question of a grief stricken ?why?? Grey/Russell launch into a line of questions many don?t wish to have asked.
In a highly stylized flourish of personal creativity, this documentary art piece dares to take a personal, private, family matter and dig ever so gently and then more aggressively into all that is truth in the manufacture and testing of bioweapons in America.
As told in linear fashion this true-to-life script could easily play out like a courtroom drama in a compressed 2 hour and 4 minute burst of emotional, edge-of-your-seat drama. This line of events is exposed over a period of nearly ten months as the exploration of Lori Hall Steele?s illness and what could be causing her to head so fast into unrecoverable sickness. We find out very quickly what ails her is Lyme disease and that this is the reason she is made to struggle so.
From failure to diagnose, to withdrawals of treatment, to refusals to issue known medications that could have prolonged or even saved her life, the tragic first act is rife with head shacking witnessing of just how bad the healthcare system is and what levels of denial we are all willing to accept in the name of capitalism and personal freedom to chose an insurance-based healthcare system.
Then, She dies.
In what has to be the most courageous act of film making I?ve ever watched, Grey/Russell turns the camera on their own and the family?s grief and we are witness to it all. Unflinchingly, we move from hospital to hospice, to final hours as treated by Grey/Russell with a ghostly telling of the time we live with those we love as they live out their end of time.
We then are witness to a cinematic requiem in honor of Lori, with a love poem in image to his dear Sister in what is a fantastic musical and ethereal call of a Spirit Home as told through film. In a homage, unsurpassed in recent memory, this scene alone is worth taking the journey, no matter how painful the steps.
As act three unfolds, the tone shifts as Grey/Russell try to get to the bottom of the question of ?why.? The directors stand on the shoulders of the great documentarians: Michael Moore with Fahrenheit 9/11 and Morgan Spurlock with Super Size Me, in telling a personal story with an honest and courageous eye while including credible witnesses from a huge cast of supporters. Experts include doctors, professors, medical scientist, government historians, and the like. In the role of character, along side the family and girlfriend Breanne, Tim Grey, filmmaker as partner to the story, uses this modern documentary style to add accessibility and connection to the material.
If the audience gets any closer to Tim Grey as filmmaker and the emotional witness in this tragedy, he?d have to adopt us all into his family and hope we brought enough food to pass at his poor sister?s memorial reception.
This is all very heavy stuff. It is technical in nature, and at times hard to swallow. But it is worth it. What works with the film is the way the detail is explained in a nicely stylized fashion without patronizing nor ?dumbing-down? the material for a ?lesser audience.? Under the Eight Ball is an intelligent film with a critically important message that could affect us all. If you watch this documentary you won?t think of a wood tick, our government, or your family in the same way again.
The climax note to us all involves the town of Lyme, CT. Grey/Russell interview the Mother of two long-ago suffering children of the yet unnamed Lyme disease. As she explains her children?s journey, we are brought full circle to the tragic impact of how fear can kill on and on into the future. The fear we weak humans possess that allowed us to make this nasty germ and unwittingly (or not) unleash it on our own. We learn that her family suffered when the disease was first ?discovered.? The facts become ever clear as she tells her story. We realize it is horribly and hauntingly familiar to the one we just watched. And we are all then left with the question: Why is this allowed to happen over and over again?
Allaolevassa artikkelissa on 18.11.2009 kirjoitettu arvostelu borrelioosielokuvasta:
""Under the eight ball" on älykäs elokuva jossa arvioidaan kriittisesti meitä kaikkia koskettavaa aihetta. Elokuvan katsoneet, näkevät vastaisuudessa punkit/borrelioosin, perheen ja hallituksen uudesta näkökulmasta. Elokuvan lopussa kahden borrelioosia sairastavan lapsen äiti kertoo lasten sairaudesta ja sen aiheuttamista peloista. Elokuvan jälkeen jää miettimään: Miksi tällaisen kärsimyksen sallitaan tapahtuvan aina vain uudelleen"?
Under the Eight Ball
Documentary Review by Joseph Robinson
November 18, 2009
Every so often a documentary film comes along that is so surprising and inspiring that it has the nagging affect of entering into the deepest hallows of a post-modern cynical mind and acknowledging all that is there. But what ends up so shocking is how in this treatise to expose the evil doing of mankind at its worst is a love so profound as to move your soul despite the horrors of ?the truth.?
Tim Grey and his girlfriend/film partner Breanne Russell direct this documentary tour de force in as a personal of a journey as one can image. This is true documentary story of the bonds of love within a family during the tragic discovery and untimely illness and demise of Mr. Grey?s Sister ? Lori Hall Steele. The tragic illness and unfortunate end is told and filmed as unflinching and honest as one can bear. As witnessed by Grey/Russell?s most telling camera, you travel through an earnest and personal review of her life, the struggle to determine the illness that has its grips on her, and then ultimate journey to the end of her life ? and beyond.
Grey/Russell and Lori Hall Steele?s family are then left in the grief stricken state of asking why?
Why indeed.
From this tragic inspiration is born the question of why? Why did this illness occur? What caused the health concerns from the beginning? What was the troubled medical industry responsible for? What role did the environment play? What role did the fact that Lori Hall Steele ran out of insurance play in this tragedy? And finally, what role did pre-communist China, Nazi Germany, the Cold War, and the United States Government have in all this?
That?s right, from this simple question of a grief stricken ?why?? Grey/Russell launch into a line of questions many don?t wish to have asked.
In a highly stylized flourish of personal creativity, this documentary art piece dares to take a personal, private, family matter and dig ever so gently and then more aggressively into all that is truth in the manufacture and testing of bioweapons in America.
As told in linear fashion this true-to-life script could easily play out like a courtroom drama in a compressed 2 hour and 4 minute burst of emotional, edge-of-your-seat drama. This line of events is exposed over a period of nearly ten months as the exploration of Lori Hall Steele?s illness and what could be causing her to head so fast into unrecoverable sickness. We find out very quickly what ails her is Lyme disease and that this is the reason she is made to struggle so.
From failure to diagnose, to withdrawals of treatment, to refusals to issue known medications that could have prolonged or even saved her life, the tragic first act is rife with head shacking witnessing of just how bad the healthcare system is and what levels of denial we are all willing to accept in the name of capitalism and personal freedom to chose an insurance-based healthcare system.
Then, She dies.
In what has to be the most courageous act of film making I?ve ever watched, Grey/Russell turns the camera on their own and the family?s grief and we are witness to it all. Unflinchingly, we move from hospital to hospice, to final hours as treated by Grey/Russell with a ghostly telling of the time we live with those we love as they live out their end of time.
We then are witness to a cinematic requiem in honor of Lori, with a love poem in image to his dear Sister in what is a fantastic musical and ethereal call of a Spirit Home as told through film. In a homage, unsurpassed in recent memory, this scene alone is worth taking the journey, no matter how painful the steps.
As act three unfolds, the tone shifts as Grey/Russell try to get to the bottom of the question of ?why.? The directors stand on the shoulders of the great documentarians: Michael Moore with Fahrenheit 9/11 and Morgan Spurlock with Super Size Me, in telling a personal story with an honest and courageous eye while including credible witnesses from a huge cast of supporters. Experts include doctors, professors, medical scientist, government historians, and the like. In the role of character, along side the family and girlfriend Breanne, Tim Grey, filmmaker as partner to the story, uses this modern documentary style to add accessibility and connection to the material.
If the audience gets any closer to Tim Grey as filmmaker and the emotional witness in this tragedy, he?d have to adopt us all into his family and hope we brought enough food to pass at his poor sister?s memorial reception.
This is all very heavy stuff. It is technical in nature, and at times hard to swallow. But it is worth it. What works with the film is the way the detail is explained in a nicely stylized fashion without patronizing nor ?dumbing-down? the material for a ?lesser audience.? Under the Eight Ball is an intelligent film with a critically important message that could affect us all. If you watch this documentary you won?t think of a wood tick, our government, or your family in the same way again.
The climax note to us all involves the town of Lyme, CT. Grey/Russell interview the Mother of two long-ago suffering children of the yet unnamed Lyme disease. As she explains her children?s journey, we are brought full circle to the tragic impact of how fear can kill on and on into the future. The fear we weak humans possess that allowed us to make this nasty germ and unwittingly (or not) unleash it on our own. We learn that her family suffered when the disease was first ?discovered.? The facts become ever clear as she tells her story. We realize it is horribly and hauntingly familiar to the one we just watched. And we are all then left with the question: Why is this allowed to happen over and over again?
Filmin elokuvateatteriesitykset alkavat tällä viikolla, 16.11.2009
"Borrelioosista kertova dokumenttielokuva joka jokaisen tulee nähdä".
Must see documentary on Lyme disease.
"Under the Eightball" Movie - World Premiere Press Release
Regular Shows Start This Week - Andalusian Dogs and JB Virtual Enterprises presents the World Premiere Theatrical Release of documentary "Under The Eightball"
Where: IFC Center 323 Sixth Avenue at West Third Street NY, NY 10014
When: Run to begin Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Who: Directors and Producers Timothy Grey and Breanne Russell will be in attendance
Contact: 212-924-7771 or go to: www.ifccenter.com
TIMES: Daily at: 1:00 pm, 3:45pm, 6:30pm, 9:15pm
Wed 12/16 through Tues 12/22
We will be doing a Q&A after the 6:30 on Wednesday.
The revolutionary, independent documentary UNDER THE EIGHTBALL, chronicles investigative journalist Lori Hall-Steele?s battle with Lyme Disease as her brother, director Timothy Grey, and friend, Breanne Russell, set out on a mission to uncover its illusive and often misunderstood origins.
Immediately confronted with a medical industry marked by ambivalence, a government steeped in corruption and greed, and a debilitating and deadly disease that traces back to the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, Grey and Russell hold fast, hastened to save Lori's life. UNDER THE EIGHTBALL promises to shift paradigms.
In their eighteen month long journey Grey and Russell travel the country in search of answers and interview top experts in the world of Lyme and Tick-Borne Diseases. UNDER THE EIGHTBALL includes live footage, historical documents, original animation and archival military footage.
Under The Eightball was produced by Andalusian Dogs and was written, directed and edited by Timothy Grey and Breanne Russell. Executive producers are Justin Blake, Rasheed Ali and Dorel Nechifor.
"Borrelioosista kertova dokumenttielokuva joka jokaisen tulee nähdä".
Must see documentary on Lyme disease.
"Under the Eightball" Movie - World Premiere Press Release
Regular Shows Start This Week - Andalusian Dogs and JB Virtual Enterprises presents the World Premiere Theatrical Release of documentary "Under The Eightball"
Where: IFC Center 323 Sixth Avenue at West Third Street NY, NY 10014
When: Run to begin Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Who: Directors and Producers Timothy Grey and Breanne Russell will be in attendance
Contact: 212-924-7771 or go to: www.ifccenter.com
TIMES: Daily at: 1:00 pm, 3:45pm, 6:30pm, 9:15pm
Wed 12/16 through Tues 12/22
We will be doing a Q&A after the 6:30 on Wednesday.
The revolutionary, independent documentary UNDER THE EIGHTBALL, chronicles investigative journalist Lori Hall-Steele?s battle with Lyme Disease as her brother, director Timothy Grey, and friend, Breanne Russell, set out on a mission to uncover its illusive and often misunderstood origins.
Immediately confronted with a medical industry marked by ambivalence, a government steeped in corruption and greed, and a debilitating and deadly disease that traces back to the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, Grey and Russell hold fast, hastened to save Lori's life. UNDER THE EIGHTBALL promises to shift paradigms.
In their eighteen month long journey Grey and Russell travel the country in search of answers and interview top experts in the world of Lyme and Tick-Borne Diseases. UNDER THE EIGHTBALL includes live footage, historical documents, original animation and archival military footage.
Under The Eightball was produced by Andalusian Dogs and was written, directed and edited by Timothy Grey and Breanne Russell. Executive producers are Justin Blake, Rasheed Ali and Dorel Nechifor.