Guinea pig work
Back when I was nineteen unemployed and on the least fun gap-year ever. I read an ad in the local rag for clinical trails. Quite simply the easiest way to make money ever.

I spent 1 day a week for 5 weeks either lying on a bed getting my heart monitored or playing pool and watching TV in the common room. And all I had to do was inhale some new asthma drug out of an inhaler which made me sleepy. Oh, and have a canula in my arm (I stupidly opened it in the toilet one day during an attack of curiosity and subsequently spent half an hour wiping blood off the walls) which wasn't too bad.

And what did I get for this? Well, they paid for my transport at £40 a trip where I was paying either a fiver or more likely nothing (back when fare-dodging was easier) and a cool £1200 (a lot of money when you're unemployed and 19) on top of that plus an extra £200 for making us come in a week early by mistake.

It's now 6 years later and I have yet to grow extra appendages or experience multiple organ failure and all I have to show for it are five little scars where the canulas went in. I also met a guy there who was on his fourth trail in two years. Nothing wrong with him apart from the fact he had so many canula scars he looked like a recovering heroin addict.

In conclusion, it's not as scary as it might sound. People do it all the time and that thing that happened in London where those guys nearly died was pretty much a one-off. That doesn't stop rumours among trailist of people getting offered legendary trails where they manually stop your heart and then use the drug to restart it. This apparently offered anywhere between £12,000-£20,000! Needless to say the story always ends with 'and there were no takers'.
( Raindance Work is inversely proportional to post-count, Mon 4 Aug 2008, 11:29, 9 replies)

Sounds pretty nifty
Perhaps I won't have to be bummed by under-sedated granddads.

Is there anywhere in particular online I'd look to find out more? Could make for some interesting answers for future QOTW.

Ta.
(RizzJizz doesn't do life., Mon 4 Aug 2008, 11:33, closed)

^good old Google^
after reading a few stories on here ive applied to do sum trials
I googled "Clinical Trials" and plenty results as is the wont of google

Could indeed make for interesting stories. I hope for super powers as a side-effect
(Joe Guevara is well known for stealing your biscuits, Mon 4 Aug 2008, 11:37, closed)

I think you mean "trials." /grammarnazi


Though you did just make me shudder with the bit about opening your canula. I used to live with a couple of medical students, and I still haven't quite got over the way they used to look longingly at my pronounced veins.
(LongJohnBaldry, Mon 4 Aug 2008, 11:37, closed)

@RizzJizz
Mine was with Pfizer at a hospital in Canterbury. The centres tend to be attched to hospitals so if you can't find adverts locally you can always visit and see what's going down.

I gather the money's even better now following that incident in London...
( Raindance Work is inversely proportional to post-count, Mon 4 Aug 2008, 11:43, closed)

@The Supreme Crow
Yeah, I never knew how far my arteries could shoot until then!
( Raindance Work is inversely proportional to post-count, Mon 4 Aug 2008, 11:44, closed)

The hospital where the men's heads became
all swollen and deformed is my local hospital.
Their maternity ward also has the highest death rate for new mothers in the country.
Good old Northwick Park!
( wanderlust, Mon 4 Aug 2008, 11:50, closed)

@Raindance
THAT'S NOT HELPING!!!!!
/shudders again
(LongJohnBaldry, Mon 4 Aug 2008, 11:52, closed)

@ Raindance
I live in Thanet just up the road from Pfizers and Cunterbury. Signed up to a couple of sites, but in my early liquid lunched state I think one of them was a bit pish and I'm now going to recieve endless phonecalls from telemarketers. DOH!

Still looking though. I need the cash and I'm always up for helping my fellow man... even if they are all tossers of the highest level.

Just wondering, what sort of health do you need to be in for these things, coz tbh, I'm quite sure I'm going into kidney failure right now. :)
(RizzJizz doesn't do life., Mon 4 Aug 2008, 11:59, closed)

@RizzJizz
Thanet, eh? I used to go to school in Ramsgate. Small world.

You need to be fairly healthy but as long as your not actually ill you've got a chance. You also need to abstain from alcohol, nicotine and caffiene (this last one hit me hardest) for two days before you go in. But different levels of health are required for different trials (for example asthmatics weren't allowed to do the one I did but were others) so they'll assess your suitability on a trial-by-trial basis.
( Raindance Work is inversely proportional to post-count, Mon 4 Aug 2008, 12:08, closed)