Toxic town

 Susan met Tracie in the maternity ward in the industrial town Corby. Corby which had a steel factory and now is being rebuilt. Where older people have various diseases including cancer. 

Susan is a working class woman with a son, but Tracie is an accountant - so must be smart. And this is her first child. 

Both give birth, but tragically. Susan's son Connor has a hand deformed - without any fingers and Tracie's daughter has deformed ear, only two chambers in her heart and missing kidneys. And the daughter does not survive. 

Here Connor undergoes surgery after surgery to give some kind of fingers to his hand using his own toes and each time infection causes the procedure to fail. The funny part is Susan's husband leaves her as 'he did not sign for it'. As if it was Susan who deliberately created a deformed child. 

As Connor grows, Susan notices there are other mothers and other children with deformities and she wonders is it due to the air or water in this town. She meets a few parents and seeing a pattern there, decides to sue to city for negligence. 

Tes a lawyer,  gets interviewed by Susan. He agrees to take up the case, which is quite complicated and may not bring him any money at all, as all these families are quite poor. He and Susan forms a group of mothers of children with congenital defects.

It may be true that the site of now defunct factory has all these toxic waste products like Cadmium. But how does one prove that, the water these mothers consumed or the air they breathed had any of these chemicals. How to prove that Cadmium causes deformities in human fetuses without actually conducting experiments on humans? 

In the meanwhile a Councillor and an employee of the city are  fired as they do not agree with hiding the facts and documents. Sam the employee who got fired, who originally collected the evidence of wrong doings of the city government and sent it to councillors, takes to alcoholism after losing his father. 

Seeing about the case on the television, Susan's husband comes back to her life and becomes a doting father and husband. Until she realizes he is after the money Connor may receive after he wins the case. 

In the court, Susan is grilled about her depression, and the medicine she takes for that, her drinking. The opposing lawyers try to prove that the child's congenital problems are due to her pills and drinking and not the air or water of the city.

The story of "Toxic town" aired in Netflix is based on a real story.