Drug Trials

[TinyGang]

\link{http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4808614.stm\This} is quite I suppose being a guinea pig will always carry an element of risk, but even so, poor men..

our neighbours used to do this to get money for holidays, but they stopped after one of them had a quite nasty reaction to something. She was poorly for quite a while.

There have been another couple of cases in the last ten years where people have died, but they weren't widely reported.

So I heard on Today yesterday. (Or was it the World Tonight?)

last night on 5 live they were saying that there has been an increase in people enquiring about becoming drug trial subjects. They said that the reason people seem to be more interested now is because a lot of people never realized that you actually get paid for it. So instead of there being a reduction in applicants, this incident seems to have had the opposite effect.

Apparently one of the men involved is being kept alive on a life support machine, they think he could be in a coma for at least a year.

I got offered one trial which I turned down (follicle stimulation hormone by abdominal injection - no!) and I did one for an anti-biotic. For what I did it was a good paticipation fee. I would consider doing it again but it would depend on what the drug was for, possible side effects etc. Like has been said already, these things have to be tested.

The people involved may be able to sue only if the medical involvement was seen to be inadequate. My mum's boss did loads of trials but had a horrible experience. He started to haalucinate that flesh was falling off his body. The people supervising were reluctant to stop, tried to get him to continue but with a lower dose. They had to stop when his heart rate was racing due to distress. He still got paid but reported the people doing the trial.

I feel terrible for the poor people that this has happened to.

The men can sue if they can show that the testing company/hospital were negligent. I read somewhere that the hospital did not follow guidelines in giving exactly the same dose at the same time to the men.

Any disclaimer the men signed would be invalid to exclude or restrict liability for personal injury arising out of negligence.