Guinea Pigs of the World, Unite!

Carl Elliott, University of Minnesota

In the United States, a large underground economy has emerged around drug testing, especially on healthy subjects in for-profit testing sites. Unlike patients in treatment studies, who may enroll in order to get access to experimental therapies, healthy subjects take part in research studies mainly for the money. These subjects are largely poor and unemployed. Ethicists and regulators would prefer that subjects take part in drug studies for humanitarian reasons, and they have argued that payment to subjects should be kept low. But does this position actually serve the interests of subjects themselves? Why shouldn’t healthy subjects be guaranteed the basic protections traditionally given to workers, such as a decent wage, safe working conditions and compensation for any injuries sustained in a study?