tsundokulove

yerp a derp. i did a 2 week generic seroquil study in canada and described being tired around day 11 to the dr instead of just saying i was tired (45 guys in the room morning high dose, literally everyone but me was asleep all day)and she said she was going to have to pull me from the study because i said a key word. I broke down because of this and she asked my why i was so upset and i mentioned not being paid for the study and she said something like "you will still be paid for your time here". I had to explain to her that (for maths sake) if my payment was $4000, $2000 of that was a completion bonus so "paid for my time" while being removed from the study for medical reasons 3 days before the end of the study meant i would get like $1600 instead of $4000 because i would forfeit my "bonus". the general culture of a labrat is head down, "no sir, yes sir, im not bleeding out of my ass and having a seizure so im fine". i always look at the post market reports of side effects because the data that they collected in many of the studies i did was complete bullshit because no one reported stuff like headaches and whatnot unless it was very very bad. also tons of the time they collected bullshit floating data points like marking how many times you went to the washroom for a urinary incontinence drug but not monitoring your water intake( wat?!?). just because you are a drug researcher doesnt mean you have your shit together.

as someone who has participated in many paid healthy volunteer medical trials its important to remind you, as a researcher, that we , as lab rats, are financially incentivized to under report negative side effects because reporting side effects can result in being removed from the trial and denied our completion bonus( often 50% of payment)

pick a company. i probably did like 15 trials with like 5 large companies in Toronto and it was always the same labrat culture. around study 5 or so you start seeing the same faces and talking. its the same culture everywhere even in the USA. im just glad i had enough medical knowledge to not pick the dangerous studies. i remember one time i had a choice between an immune system repressing organ transplant drug and a synthetic vitimen D supplement but both paid the same the person on the phone just gave me two random sounding drug names though as information and a sentence or two of info but couldnt answer follow up questions about them ... guess which one i picked, sucks to be the people who didnt know enough to be able to google around and read the animal studies before accepting the trial though. being a labrat was a great bonus job because i took my books and studied while i was in the trials while i was at uni, but its very a predatory industry because most of the participants were uneducated or desperate and i hardly meet a single person who did a trial that had not taken a vitamin or supplement or smoked in the 6 month lock out period. most people just checked for obvious contraindications or stuff that you could test positive for. i didnt smoke or do drugs or anything while i was doing studies(who can afford to as a student XD) but i herd stories of people who like... snuck drugs into the studies and did them in the bathroom... haha. swampy data everywhere.

to her credit though she did keep me on for "medical observation" so i did get the full payment. especially for the longer term studies where you stay in the facility you definatly DO NOT tell the researchers about problems unless its really bad.

Yes if you are paying your subjects they are only answering questions directly asked and are downplaying things on a sliding scale based on how broke and desperate they are. Money IS worth your health, i didnt want to take like 200mg of seroquil for two weeks but i did the math on how long it would take me to make the money from doing the study at a random construction job or something and weighed how annoying the seroquel would be vs how much bodily hazards i would be exposed to in the 2 or 3 months it would have taken me to get the money by working at a job. Because it was a rubber stamp study i figured it was not going to be harmfull like the immunosuppressant study. I was foggy for a couple of weeks after but it was definatly less annoying/dangerous than doing site clean up. I would say that 90% of people just see the paycheque though and take what ever study they are offered, this probably creates a situation where the most marginalized and potentially ambiantly unhealthy people are doing the most dangerous studies. Half the peolle there had like highschool or less English comprehension because they were ESL so if you start talking about scientific terms or whatever they probably just nod and smile. Dont get me wrong though... i would still happily do studies if they were offered in my city, its a great side job if you pick the good/safe ones, but i just feel like its important to remind researchers that their subjects are usually finincially incentivised to lie and underplay side effects. Now when ever i look at info for a med im taking i ignore the medical aproval info from the types of studies i was in and only look at post market side effect reports. Lol