Medical Research

[Kweek]

so in the newspapers some companies are advertising medical research,
which means that you visit a sort of hospital 7 times in 3 months with one overnight stay and they pay you a lumpsum of 1000 euro.
all they do is research a new drug on you, take your blood and that's it...
they claim that it's 99% safe which basically means its just as save as driving a car...
so i'm thinking of doing one, as I could do with 1000 euro...and to feed my curiousity...

anyone of you ever did something likewise or something?

 

[GIMH]

Ever hear of this case?

Having said that, that was a rarity. Put me off though.

 

[Kweek]

research i'm applying too is saver haha, it's about being too fat and smoking basically hahaha...

 

[silentstriker]

As a person who is involved and hopes to be involved in this, volunteers are always welcome and are sorely needed for the advancement of medicine.


With that said, you couldn't pay me enough to volunteer for drug trials unless I already had a condition and there were no other choices. Seriously, the last thing you want is a cancer in your lymph nodes five years down the line from this. $1000 Euros are not worth risking that.

 

[silentstriker]

And I don't know how they can tell its 99% safe on humans - you'll be the guinea pig that'll decide how safe it is for humans. Rats are very similar to humans physiologically - but not so similar that there aren't plenty of nasty surprises waiting in the wings, and you don't want to be on the receiving end of one of those. It's funny we probably know a lot more about rat physiology than human physiology, considering the thousands of experiments done every day on them. We've certainly been very successful in modifying them genetically and curing diseases that are endemic to the genus rattus. Unfortunately, not everything carries over, and for every ten things that work on rats, only a couple may have the same effect on humans....so we end up being rat experts.

 

[Kweek]

the reason it's 1000 euro (which is the lowest) is because it does not involve a lot of medicine and there for it's pretty safe and this research has already been done, but there are several groups (and a lot of them started in the past and are finished already) and there is always a 50/50 chance you get a placebo...

 

[BoyBrumby]

Ever hear of this case?

Having said that, that was a rarity. Put me off though.

First thing I thought of! You need to at least stick another zero on the end to even vaguely tempt me.

Used to work with a girl who did cold cure research. Her & her then fiancee would both have a week off & then be given about £400 to be deliberately infected with the common cold & then sit around being ill.

Can really think of better things to do with a week off tbh.

 

[Kweek]

I just have to make 5 short visits and 1 overnight stay....

this is spread over 3 months!

 

[silentstriker]

the reason it's 1000 euro (which is the lowest) is because it does not involve a lot of medicine and there for it's pretty safe and this research has already been done, but there are several groups (and a lot of them started in the past and are finished already) and there is always a 50/50 chance you get a placebo...

The amount of medicine you get is meaningless. H2CO (Formaldehyde) can be toxic and can have some nasty effects when its as low as 1 part per 10,000,000. If there has been previous research - what effects are they studying now? There must be something unknown there for them to continue research. Plus, many effects of these drugs are long term and no study is going to pick them up.

 

[silentstriker]

For all you know, they could be studying what dosage it takes for the drug to cross the blood-brain barrier.

OK, well they wouldn't be doing that this late in the study, but the point is I wouldn't take the risk. The only time I would recommend someone volunteer for such trials is if they have a disease that you've run out of options with and are just taking a chance on something unproven.

It's one thing if you're asked to eat a lot and they monitor you while sleeping, but taking any medications? I'd be real careful - is $1000 worth your life? Chances are, it won't come to that, but is $1000 worth having a chronic condition for the rest of your life, even if its minior?

 

[Googenheim]

Find out on a case to case basis if the drug being tested on you is a completely new molecule or just a new combination of pre-existing drugs. The latter would be a safe bet for you, since it would basically involve multi drug formulations of already tested drugs. As far as I know, such fixed dose combinations need to undergo trials before approval too, and those trials are usually just a formality.

 

[Smudge]

My mates did it at uni. Most of the time, they just sat there playing Playstation. If it's fairly low-scale stuff, I'd go for it if I were you.

 

[NZTailender]

Thinking about doing it, as I'm sick enough as it is. Could do worse, but wouldn't bother me at this stage.

 

[cpr]

Seriously considering it, now i've learnt how to swallow tablets (took me 24 years, i know).

Couple of hundred quid to feel a bit lousy. Pay £1.77 a pint for that ATM, so might aswell go the other way and get paid for it.

 

[nibbs]

do it, kweek. easy money. nothing will go wrong. don't listen to the haters

 

[LongHopCassidy]

do it, kweek. easy money. nothing will go wrong. don't listen to the haters

 

[Son Of Coco]

Some of my mates did in in the UK for travel money and they're ok (so far), there was the case over there though where a few people got dangerously ill. I think one of them was an Aussie.