Tracey Barnett: Silver screen glosses over the not-so-happy ending

If Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz had taken care of it, I thought things would be just fine. When two people look that good in bed together, who's thinking about politics?

By the time Hollywood gets to an issue, we assume the real life story is dead and buried. After all, don't movies only show you the dirt that the real world has long since vacuumed into a comfortable level of righted justice?

Dressed in thinly veiled fiction, The Constant Gardener should have taught me everything I need to know about big, snarling drug companies around the world using poor Africans as guinea pigs. In the end Ralphie-boy's deadly secrets ultimately triumph with their exposure in front of the world press chomping at the bit to reveal the truth (insert big angel chorus here).

But the truth is a whole lot uglier. That version never makes it to the silver screen. We don't want to believe that the magic of the media's glare doesn't always deliver a happy ending.

Take this cinema verite: In 1996 Pfizer doctors flew into a Nigerian children's field hospital to treat an outbreak of meningitis with a new, unapproved antibiotic called Trovan, a potential $1 billion blockbuster still courting Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval.

Pfizer says they arrived with purely philanthropic motives to stem the epidemic that ultimately killed 15,000, according to the Washington Post.

Many Nigerian parents say they were never told of the experiment. No consent was signed; though the company maintains those who were non-literate gave verbal consent. A local doctor at the clinic forged a backdated letter approving the trial from a then non-existent medical ethics committee.

Doctors without Borders say the children were given the drug orally when such urgent epidemic conditions would ethically call for intravenous antibiotics. The children who did receive the usual antibiotic intravenously got it in smaller doses to match Trovan's oral application. In other words, these kids were given less medicine in a less effective way.

A year later, Trovan hit the US market (without approval for American children), but was plagued by reports of resulting liver damage. By 1999, the FDA restricted it and Europe banned the drug.

Cue the cavalry; four years later the Washington Post came riding to the rescue with a six-part expose on Third World clinical trials where the Pfizer case was cited.

Nigerians demonstrated in the streets, lawsuits bloomed and officials in both countries vowed reform.

A Nigerian panel concluded this case stunk; Pfizer had violated international law.

Here's where the wonderfully confusing blend of art and politics collide. Inspired by the subject, John LeCarre added a love story and wrote a fictionalised book on the topic.

When The Constant Gardener hit theatres, those of us who may have missed the news got to see how the guys in white hats win when the media rides to the rescue. By the time credits roll, we rest easy because justice has been done, right?

But hang on to your ticket, that's not how the story ends.

Ditch your dramatic catharsis: In the real world 30 Nigerian families took their case to US courts to argue against the world's biggest drug company. But after fighting for four years, they lost. The judge ruled this should be tried in Nigeria. They are still seeking an appeal.

There are no more protesters in the streets of Nigeria. Their immediate anger dissipated years ago. And a new face has now replaced the health minister who once vowed justice.

In true LeCarre style, the Nigerian panel's findings mysteriously never surfaced.

The attorney for the families, Elaine Kusel, spent years searching for that report. A copy was stolen from a Nigerian government safe, and another was reportedly held by an official who died, according to the Washington Post. It lay buried.

Until now. Just last week the Washington Post got hold of the report after five long years and published its dirt, the media's white hats still trying to do right. Their source asked to remain anonymous for fear of personal safety. It makes you almost wonder whether LeCarre does indeed write fiction.

Representative Tom Lantos of California called it "absolutely appalling".

"I think it borders on the criminal that the large pharmaceutical companies, both here and in Europe, are using these poor, illiterate and uninformed people as guinea pigs," Lantos told the Washington Post. He will introduce a bill in the House calling for reform. I wonder if it will be similar to the one that failed in 2001.

And so the tale ends - by continuing. Forget the comforting denouement.

Justice isn't finished when a story hits the morning's papers or when the credits roll or when the lawsuits burgeon or even when the legislation is introduced.

Maybe justice's true twin is tenacity.

We all wish for the fairytale finish that the movie The Constant Gardner tagged on to LeCarre's more unresolved ending in his book. We assume that the courts will do right by the little guy. We hope that the media will make a difference. We all vote for legislators to sign into law that which seems fair.

But justice isn't as pretty as Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz laughing in bed together. Because sleeping right beside them - 10 years on - is the force of power and money that is so far wrecking everybody's happy ending.

We just can't see it because there is one rule of politics and cinema we haven't learned; justice is most effectively denied in slow motion.