In the 1970s, something astonishing happened: U.S. heart-attack deaths suddenly plunged. Nearly 200,000 fewer Americans died in a single decade—a drop too steep to credit to new procedures, better diets, or luck.
So what changed? What unseen force shifted the health of an entire nation?
For fifty years, heart disease has killed more Americans than anything else—more than cancer, guns, and opioids combined. Nearly 700,000 people still die each year. Yet we rarely ask two basic questions: Why did heart attacks become epidemic in the 20th century? And why did mortality fall so abruptly in the 1970s?
Our short film, Toxic Hearts: How the Auto Industry Fueled the Heart Disease Epidemic, follows the clues medicine overlooked. It traces how a pervasive toxic exposure—quietly woven into daily life—helped drive a national epidemic, and how pulling that toxic element back saved millions of lives. The story isn’t about blaming patients or denying the value of treatment. It’s about seeing the upstream causes that shape who gets sick in the first place.
If removing a toxic exposure helped turn the tide once, it could do it again.
Watch, Share, Act
Watch the film.
Share it with your friends, colleagues, and networks.
Ask your representatives what they’re doing to reduce exposures to toxic chemicals and air pollution.
Little Things Matter
Toxic Hearts is part of a broader effort by Little Things Matter to shift the narrative—from treating disease to removing its upstream causes.
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