Amidst a national debate on reproductive rights, a black woman in Texas confronts a deeply personal 15-year struggle with uterine fibroid tumors, a debilitating reproductive disease affecting over 85% of black women. After nearly losing her life to treatment and enduring multiple miscarriages, she embarks on a journey across the country to seek answers, all while grappling with her own battle against a biased medical system.
Red Alert: The Fight Against Fibroids gives accounts from women whose
lives were interrupted by uterine fibroids, a common illness affecting 70% of all women and 90% of African-American women today.
There is no known cause for this reproductive illness, yet over 500,000
fibroid-related hysterectomies are performed each year.
Direct and indirect costs of uterine fibroids in the U.S. are estimated
up to $36+ billion annually.
"Research is formalized curiosity, it is poking and prying with a purpose."
- Zora Neale Hurston
For Erica, a 40-something black woman, uterine fibroid tumors nearly ended her life. Her diagnosis in 2008 would mark the beginning of fifteen years of treatments, surgeries, pain, endometriosis, cysts, infertility, miscarriage and eventually, the
intensive care Unit. The film follows Erica’s fibroid journey as she lives through the emotional and physical effects of this debilitating reproductive disease. After being told by multiple doctors that a hysterectomy was her only option, Erica made the conscious decision to open up about her experience through this personal documentary. The investigation quickly turns into a lesson on race and gender inequity in American healthcare systems, biases in government healthcare spending
and the blatant lack of information and general public interest about a reproductive disease that affects millions of black women each year.
Through years of interviews we present the stories of fibroid patients who have come forth to share their shocking experiences of forced hysterectomies, infertility, shame, body distortion and diminished self-esteem as they navigate through their symptoms. Why are black women suffering at earlier ages from fibroids with worse symptoms than women of other races? Why are such a large majority of physicians only offering a hysterectomy as an option for treatment when other, non-invasive, less-costly treatments exist?
The film also includes conversations with black women in the celebrity spotlight whose personal lives were forced to become public because of uterine fibroids. Red Alert is a film that will change the way this country perceives the reproductive health of all women, and particularly black women. We will uncover truths and dispel widespread myths about uterine fibroid tumors. We present the latest research from accredited scientists and researchers supported by the National Institute of Health, the Mayo Clinic, the University of Chicago, Northwestern University School of Medicine, Harvard University, ACOG, The University of Michigan, the National Women's Health Network and many others.
WHY AREN'T WE TALKING ABOUT IT?
The goal of Red Alert: The Fight Against Fibroids is to build awareness and compassion for the vast amounts of women who are suffering from fibroids and related reproductive illnesses. We present the faces of fibroids, while expressing the hopes and fears of the women whose lives have been interrupted, through thoughtful, artistic production, along with cutting edge research that could spark progressive change for millions of lives everywhere.
No more suffering in silence.
Uterine fibroids affect 171 million women worldwide.
Why hasn't more attention, research and funding been given toward this illness?
Endometriosis:
a condition resulting from the appearance of endometrial tissue outside the uterus and causing pelvic pain
- Oxford dictionary
Cause: UNKNOWN
Uterine Fibroid:
a benign tumor of muscular and fibrous tissues, typically developing in the wall of the uterus
- Oxford dictionary
Cause: UNKNOWN
