Mums v Big Pharma review – the ‘bored, hysterical housewives’ who exposed a horrifying scandal

Janet Williams and Emma Murphy both had children with disabilities, then started doing some digging … and uncovered a jaw-dropping medical fiasco that rivals thalidomide. Long may they fight!

Tales of corporate or governmental wrongdoing are often hugely complicated. Documents destroyed, witnesses untraceable, endless obfuscations and legal intricacies invoked. If the people doing the uncovering are ordinary folk, unarmed with fancy lawyers or untrained in the ways of big business or statecraft, the story often becomes even more of a switchback ride before the mind-boggling whole is laid bare.

Just occasionally, however, the story is very simple (though no less mind-boggling).