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The human lab rat racket

If you don't know much about the drug testing industry, well, you're not alone. Until coming across this Bloomberg News story, I didn't realize that pharmaceutical companies outsource most of their clinical trials to third parties - private companies that are scarcely regulated, practice under dangerous working conditions, and often lack licensed medical doctors. Drug companies love 'em, though, because the outfits turn trials around quickly and, should something go afoul, the drug companies can maintain plausible deniability.

Of course, if there is one job title that makes working at Wal-Mart sound good, it is "human lab rat." But the illegal immigrants and other poor who participate don't have much choice, and the companies take full advantage.

[A drug trial for Purdue Pharma] paid volunteers $2.78 an hour, or $66.72 per 24-hour day, for the first nine days of confinement. For those who remained, payment jumped to $333.33 a day for the final three days, with a bonus of $800 paid following a single follow-up visit.

Such payment backloading is coercive and thus unethical, says Peter Lurie, a physician who is deputy medical director of Public Citizen, a Washington-based group that monitors patient safety issues. "It provides a very powerful incentive for somebody to continue in a study even if they're being made uncomfortable by it,'' he says.

What's more, like good marketers, the clinical farms describe tests to subjects in a misleading way. For instance, one company lists the goal of one of its study as determining "the highest daily dose of TD-6301 that will not cause an undesired increase in heart rate." But as a University of Miami biologist points out, what they should really be saying is: the purpose of this study is to make you sick in order to find out how much of this drug people can handle.

Anyway, those curious to learn more about clinical testing should check out Guinea Pig Zero. Formerly a print zine, GPZ is now defunct but an anthology is available and selected archives are  online.