Side Effects (film)

Side Effects (2005) is a feature film about the pharmaceutical industry starring Katherine Heigl (known for her role on the television series Grey's Anatomy).

Directed and written by Kathleen Slattery-Moschkau, the movie is about Karly Hert, a young woman who fumbles with love and ethics as she navigates a career within corporate America's pharmaceutical industry. The movie's title is a reference to the medical term side effects.

Karly Hert (Katherine Heigl) has spent the last ten years selling drugs...legally, that is. She works for one of corporate America's darlings, the pharmaceutical industry. Karly has it all - a big salary, a company car, a closet full of hot business suits and a growing pit in her stomach...

Everything changes when she meets sexy Zach Danner (Lucian McAfee), a down-to-earth guy. Sparks fly! As their relationship heats up, he encourages Karly to walk her talk and leave her empty job. Karly devises a plan to get out - she begins being brutally honest with physicians about her drugs' "benefits." Ironically, her sales go through the roof and she is once again wooed by the seductive golden handcuffs.

Somehow leaving is never quite as easy as it seems...

In May 2006, Slattery-Moschkau released a related documentary entitled "Money Talks: Profits before Patient Safety", which further explored drug industry marketing practices in interviews with doctors, journalists, and activists. The director herself was in the industry for ten years. She started having qualms about her company's practices after five years, but reported that the financial rewards these companies give their representatives kept her in the industry for five more years.