As one part of a multi-platform advocacy project, Sick to Death! was born from filmmaker Maggie Hadleigh-West's life-long experience with thyroid disease and tells the universal story of day-to-day life with chronic illness, it’s collision with the medical corruption that hinders healing – and seeks medical justice for millions of individuals worldwide.

MAKE A TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATION

First Goal: REACHED!! $10,000 will fund completion of the ROUGH CUT, when the edit is looking good, but still needs other technical and creative work to perfect picture and sound quality.

Second Goal: $35,000 will take us to FILM COMPLETION, covering the other expensive costs of post-production, which include: color correction, sound design, original music composition, and sound mixing and mastering.

Final Goal: $50,000 will take us into DISTRIBUTION, covering required administrational and legal costs, film festival submission fees, printing and packaging DVDs, and more expenses that we must cover before the film is released in theaters, and on television and DVD. Reaching this last goal means we’ll also be able to make it available online faster – and we hope to offer it online using a “pay-what-you-can” payment model, too!

We believe that the information this film will convey is critically important, and patients should have access to it as soon as possible. If we reach the goal of $50,000, the film will be finished and released more quickly, giving patients information they need and deserve sooner, and potentially restoring the health of millions of people worldwide.

"Once you turn your attention to thyroid disease, you'll understand that everywhere you look, someone you know or love is suffering from this illness and its myriad of symptoms. Even more frightening, this disease is the undercurrent of many other commonplace "illnesses" whose root causes are not being treated.

And then there is systemic suppression of pre-existing medical information, including: recognition of obvious physical symptoms, which used to be commonplace knowledge and is no longer taught, published medical textbooks that thoroughly explore thyroid disease and its related illnesses that are no longer utilized, hundreds of studies that have been conducted but are ignored, tests that are rarely utilized which more accurately detect the disease, and a century-old naturally derived medication that is available-yet denied to patients. And all of this suppression is done in the name of commerce.

Our job in Sick to Death!, is to bring awareness of these issues to the public, expose the problems that surround this epidemic and hold accountable the industry that is thwarting the health of millions of people worldwide."

– Maggie Hadleigh-West, Director of Sick to Death!, Social Justice Activist, Award-Winning Filmmaker & 2013 Guggenheim Award Winner

Doctor Sponsors have pledged to support the SICK TO DEATH! mission and patients by offering all treatment options. Learn more about Doctor Sponsors.

THE SYNOPSIS

In the feature-length documentary, Sick to Death!, filmmaker Maggie Hadleigh-West exposes her own disturbing, yet determined 30-year struggle to regain her spiraling health. After seeing hundreds of doctors who either disregarded her symptoms, misdiagnosed or under-treated her, Maggie discovers that her thyroid problem was a fully understood medical issue as early as the 1940’s, but today leaves more than 59 million people sick and suffering in the US – many of them are undiagnosed.

At once a deeply intimate portrait and a rousing invitation to seize life and health to the fullest, Sick to Death! will invite audiences to turn their diagnoses into a call to arms.

WHY WE NEED YOUR HELP

The Guggenheim Foundation awarded Maggie a grant in 2013/14 for Sick to Death!, but this award only covered the costs of production – paying a team of professional filmmakers to shoot film and audio for close to 12 months, and the creation of the advocacy web project: www.sick2death.com.

We conducted 52 interviews between New Orleans, New York City, Ithica, Boston and Los Angeles – 92 hours of footage in total! – and began editing in January. We plan to finish the film in time for the Sundance Film Festival submission deadline in September – but we’ll need your help to get there.

Your contributions to our $10,000 goal will go specifically toward the first phase of editing – making “assemblies,” crafting scenes, and finishing a rough cut. However, our Sick to Death! Kickstarter has a 3-Part Objective: First to raise the minimum funds needed to craft the story, second to finish the film completely, and third to distribute it.

THE REWARDS