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The Constant Gardener movie posterThe Constant Gardener is a movie that highlights the impact of the greed of Big Pharmaceuticals in desperate regions like Africa. It was in my Netflix queue mostly because it was classified as a "thriller", but it turned out to be not a thriller at all but a cry for attention. And a very good one, at that.

In the movie, a particular pharmaceutical company bundles experimental drugs into a treatment for tuberculosis, so if the African villagers want treatment for TB, they essentially sign away their lives into this drug test. The testing ends up killing loads of people, and the main character's wife, Tessa, begins a secret crusade against this horrible exploitation. She and her friends end up dead, presumably at the hands of the drug company.

Tessa tried to keep her dealings secret from her husband because she thought that would keep him safe, but after she died, he started digging into her files and contacts, and he, too, became entwined in the underground movement against the TB treatment. At the end of the movie, Tessa's noble efforts, combined with those of everyone else, only led to their deaths. They were noticed, but if the story were to continue, I'm certain they would have put only an insignificant dent into the plans of the drug giant.

The cynical part of me can imagine this sort of thing happening all the time, and when you add this to the terrible things that have gone on Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sudan, and practically everywhere else in sub-Saharan Africa recently, it's no wonder everything is a mess over there. And, it's not stopping any time soon.

What can we do about it? There's no end to the support we can give the good organizations, like the World Health Organization, Amnesty International, and Médecins Sans Frontières. At least check out their web sites. If something terrible is happening on the other side of the world, that doesn't mean it's not happening.