Taking part in medical research

Bottle_of_Smoke

Finding a job for summer proving fairly difficult and have to say quite tempted by taking part in medical research trials

The money is quite good which kind of worries me, but then im thinking, drugs companies fund these so they can afford to pay people a lot.

Does anyone know what kind of safety tests things go through before human sampling? Any data out there about how often stuff goes wrong and people end up damaged.

A lot of the studies available are for MS treatments, wondering could these treatments cause any nerve damage in themselves ( i don't have it myself, they're trialing on helathy volunteers)

Any general opinions welcome

DrIndy

You're asking a very difficult question!

Any research lads around?

samson09

If you value your health stay well clear. You'll probably be ok but who knows what damage could be done? Seriously, there are better ways to make a few quid.

DrIndy

I have to agree with samson09 to an extent.

Although these drug tests have all passed animal models as being safe - this is phase 2 trials on healthy volunteers to check for side effects.

Most are safe - but there was a dramatic trial in london for an novel immunomodulator drug which induced a cytokine/interleukin storm in humans which it didn't do in any other animal tested on.

For a drug development viewpoint - human trials like this are essential to get a new agent thats desperately needed onto the market - however, read the fine print, be well informed, check what health cover they provide in the unlikely event something happens and make sure you are full and frank regarding all background and family health.

misty76

samson09 wrote: »

If you value your health stay well clear. You'll probably be ok but who knows what damage could be done? Seriously, there are better ways to make a few quid.

I agree, don't think i would chance it.. Read this..

http://briandeer.com/tgn1412/dispatches.htm

DrIndy

We need a research person here to provide a balancing argument.

The trial misty76 referred to was the one I mentioned. Although this grabbed headlines because it went so dramatically and unexpectedly wrong - has anyone ever heard of the same thing happening for the literally hundreds of other drugs launched and trialled this past few years? No.

amjon

What your doing is entering a game of russian roulette with the odds stacked in your favour. The people giving you the drug will be increasing the dossage until the reach the maximum tolerated dose in humans. Very little will be known about the long term or idiopathic side effects of the drug. If it came to it I would steal from my own family or the poor box before signing up to this sort of carry on.

Kevster

Out of sheer curiosity, where did you read about opportunities to get involved in these research trials?

Kevin

GuanYin

They should all be approved by the state regulatory board. In the US, there are extremely rigorous checks in place such studies.

I should also mention that not all trials are drug trials, there are many other types such as nutrition studies and general health studies.