[Question] How do you all feel about medical research trials for money?

Dave

Staff member
There's a clinical research study that I'm thinking of joining specifically because of the money. But I worry about the safety of it. I know to get to this point they've done tests, but you just never know.

What are your thoughts?
 
Sign me up!

I mean, I guess if it was "we wanna see if we can switch your hands and feet, 'cause YOLO" I might not. But if it's "take a pill and let's see what happens" then sure, fuck it.
 
Is it conducted through a public institution, like a university or VA hospital? If so, the code of ethics is very strict and dictated by the US government. If it is directly through a company, the ethical standards will be dictated by the free market and contract laws.
 
I'm with phil. Sometimes all they want you to do are things like "eat an extra 1000 calories every day for a month."

--Patrick
 
My wife and I do this quite regularly for $. We're at a university that has a website for all the studies on campus. We also give blood to studies for free, especially if the come to our building. We haven't done anything super-invasive though. We've also never taken any sort of drugs for the studies. I think we are generally the "healthy controls." So, it depends on the study, but it should be safe. If it is at all unsafe then you better get some $$$.
 
For $13k you'd be getting an HIV drug? I'd say the risk should be fairly low depending on how the drug works. If it goes after the virus then it should be safe. If it is altering your immune system to deal with the virus then maybe less safe.

The topical pain reliever sounds fairly benign.
study number: CA21662


That's all way more money than we have been offered, but there are a ton of return visits.

Which one are you thinking of doing?[DOUBLEPOST=1493826097,1493826064][/DOUBLEPOST]
Sammi's getting married.
Vegas.
 
I'm looking at study #CA20829 at https://helpresearch.com/studies
This is not a university or hospital run study. That doesn't make it dangerous, just unbound by the academic ethical code. For instance, they can offer tons of money for more dangerous studies, which cannot happen at a university or hospital. This is a long-term study, which is at least ONE of the reasons for the amount of money

If you decide to do it, keep these things in mind:

Examine which rights you are signing away. Will you have the right to withdraw at any time? If so, what happens?
They will probably tell you a lot of information about the drug(s) and procedures, but make sure they have lots of detail about every stage of the study, especially the risks associated with participating. Don't let them gloss over it.

I gotta run to class. I can weigh in more later.
 

Dave

Staff member
Please do and thanks. I want to help my daughter, but not risk my health in the process.
 
We've participated in studies ourselves and signed our children up for them occasionally. We've restricted ourselves to noninvasive studies, though. No drug testing, nothing that requires operations, etc. About the limit for me was allowing my kids to have free MRIs (not CAT scans!). They, of course, got to keep the money and choose whether to join such studies or not. We got into doing these studies primarily as a way to obtain expensive care cheaply - we needed to have some of our kids tested for autism spectrum disorders, and even if we had the $4k comprehensive testing cost locally at the time, the waitlist was over a year long. Or we could participate in studies that just happened to include the same testing (and diagnosis if requested) as part of their study.

This one sounds like a lot of money to test a drug. Even with two weekend stays, that's just a lot of money. Further, it's for an HIV drug, and that sets off alarm bells for me due to an article I read years ago about an autoimmune drug trial run by a private company: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9734-mystery-over-drug-trial-debacle-deepens-/

Given the high pay, I'd suggest there's an associated high risk. Probably a very early stage drug trial. Further, it's one that is meant to attack AIDs. There's not much out there that can go after AIDs without also having significant negative consequences. In other words, this is a drug you'd only ever take because AIDs is far worse than the side effects.


Here's some interesting insight into the lincoln, ne Celerion site:
http://jalr.proboards.com/thread/89/celerion-review-suspicion

Note that he suggests a study requiring four overnight visit of 4 nights each and 28 return visits got him only $5,500. That's significantly more time (16 overnights, 28 returns) for less than half the price of yours.

In fact there are only a few threads on that board, might be worth reading through them. It looks like getting into any study is extraordinarily competitive, and there's already people who have priority for new studies. They pick and choose participants based on who's most likely to complete, and they kick people out of a study as early as possible to avoid study failure. There is also some pressure not to report side effects because it'll get you kicked out of a study. (all things which set off alarm bells for me in terms of the FDA drug approval process, and help me understand why deadly drugs like fen-phen got on the market in the first place.)

http://jalr.proboards.com/board/6/celerion-lincoln-ne

In other words, even if you do want to do this it's going to be very hard to get in (lots of people will want to be in on this expensive study), and if you do get in you may have to choose between reporting accurately, and staying in the study to get the completion bonus. My guess is that the completion bonus is large, and so you could end up getting an injection of an not-yet-tested-on-humans drug, having medical problems because of it, and walking away with a small fraction of the advertised pay. No doubt the disclaimers will be iron clad and prevent you from seeking much compensation if things go really wrong. The cytokine storm the first article I linked to above is really a worst case scenario (well, aside from actual death - but they aren't monitoring you for 48 hours for funsies, either) - if there are significant adverse reactions they probably aren't going to be nearly as bad.

Soooo.... It'd be a big no for me, for all these reasons.

Have an inexpensive wedding instead.[DOUBLEPOST=1493833992,1493833863][/DOUBLEPOST]Haha, look at me, mr. doom and gloom with a side dish of conspiracy! Take it all with a huge grain of salt. $13k is nothing to sneeze at, and if it's the perfect wedding and all you suffer is lifelong persistent dry mouth or a similar side effect I'm sure you'll be happy with your decision.[DOUBLEPOST=1493834132][/DOUBLEPOST]If you do decide to go through with it, though, make certain you are very, very well informed. There are lots of resources for "lab rats" that tell you how the industry works, what to ask, what not to ask, and what, if any, trips and traps might befall the newbie. It's worth significant research before starting the ... uh... research.[DOUBLEPOST=1493834720][/DOUBLEPOST]It's very odd that Yelp and the BBB have absolutely nothing on them. I guess you can always ask what employees thought of working there:
https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Celerion/reviews?start=20
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Yeah, I was about to pipe up about "being offered a lot of money to test HIV drugs" is a huge red flag for me - because HIV drugs usually have horrible side effects that are deemed acceptable because it's still better than AIDS.

But I see MD already covered that.
 
If you decide to do the study for compensation, find out if there are taxes on the payment and if they are taken off before you get the money. I used to do antihistamine studies when I lived in Kingston and had to pay taxes on what I received.
 
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