Plot summary: A pharmaceutical company uses the residents of Kibera in Kenya as guinea pigs to test its dubious new tuberculosis drug. Enter bold heroine, followed by soon-to-become-bold hero, hot on the trails of the company's attempts to cover up the drug's horrible side effects.
Science review: Come on now, no drug company would go as far as to lie about people dying in a trial, would it? I know the pharma industry has had its iffy moments: companies have been criticized for not publishing all their data about antidepressant drugs that might have upped the chance of childhood suicide. And then there was that arthritis drug that might have caused up to 140,000 cases of heart disease in the United States before it was withdrawn from sale. But surely no company would knowingly put its bottom line above people's lives?
Tell that to the good workers of Doctors Without Borders, who struggled for years to get HIV drugs to thousands of dying people in South Africa because the companies wouldn't lower their prices. What seemed to work then was creating a media storm that embarrassed the companies into donating drugs. In the movie too, the evil company gets its comeuppance when the emboldened hero exposes its villainy in front of the press. What's a little less believable, we hope, is that the network of baddies extends well into the governments of several countries.
Award: Scariest depiction of abuse of power by a drug company.
Image: courtesy of Universal Pictures UK |
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