Alumna’s documentary ‘The Idiot Cycle’ attempts to prove links between companies’ chemical byproducts and cancer

In her controversial documentary “The Idiot Cycle,” Emmanuelle Schick Garcia attempts to prove that the emissions and byproducts of several major chemical companies are causing cancer. This may be the reason why the alumna’s film will not be released widely in the U.S. anytime soon.

Despite the lack of wide release, the environmental student group E3 will screen the documentary on campus on Thursday.

Ingrid Pfister, fourth-year global studies student and social co-chair for E3, has spent the last few weeks organizing the screening.

“The Idiot Cycle” focuses on the practices of six companies from around the world: Dow Chemical, BASF, Bayer, DuPont, AstraZeneca and Monsanto.

Garcia argues in the documentary that these companies not only produce and emit potential cancer-causing materials, but also profit from the cancer treatments each of the respective companies offers.

“It makes you question the connections between multinational corporations or big corporate companies and their connection to cancer,” Pfister said.

Student groups at UC Irvine, UC Santa Barbara and UC Davis will also be screening the film in the coming weeks.

Lauren Jabusch, a fifth-year biological systems engineering student at UC Davis and treasurer of the university chapter of the California Student Sustainability Coalition, is organizing her school’s screening. She said a member higher up in the coalition approached her about showing “The Idiot Cycle,” but she has not seen the film.

Garcia came up with the idea for the film following her mother’s breast cancer diagnosis at the age of 49. Garcia said that since her family did not have a history of cancer, she suspected it was caused by environmental factors.

“I think my experiences are universal ““ practically everyone today knows someone with cancer. My question is why,” Garcia said.

Garcia spent seven years researching the relationship between the major chemical companies and cancer, but she never set foot inside any of the refineries.

“All the facts were based on published, peer reviewed studies. Other facts were from legal archives, government records and on-site questioning of witnesses and residents,” Garcia said.

She said she attempted to contact some of the companies, but had little success reaching them.

Garcia notes that many of the chemicals the refineries emit can be found in everyday consumer products. She focused in part on dioxin, a toxic chemical known to be a carcinogen, which is commonly found in meat and dairy products.

Garcia also places a great deal of emphasis on the newest frontier these companies have begun to tackle: genetically modified foods that, much like the companies’ previous products, have not been extensively tested for health concerns. And so, according to Garcia, “the idiot cycle” continues.

The issue of genetically modified foods caught the attention of Avery Gerber, a fourth-year linguistics and French student and the co-chairwoman of E3. She said this is one of the reasons she is interested in attending the screening.

“(Genetically modified foods) is an issue that is so little publicized here in America,” Gerber said.

As of yet, there are no plans for the wide release of the film in the U.S. Currently Garcia has been unable to obtain errors and omissions insurance, which is meant to protect companies from legal liability. Garcia said that they were denied the insurance because of the subject matter of the documentary, but were not given a specific reason.

“The conflicts of interest between insurance companies and biotech chemical companies didn’t help our cause, since their biggest clients are biotech and chemical companies,” Garcia said.