Has anyone ever partook in paid clinical trials? Any shit to watch out for?
I've done three drug studies, over the course two different winters a few years ago when I was living in Philly. One at Bristol-Meyers Squibb (they have a big research center in Trenton NJ), one at a hospital in Philly, one at a hospital in Baltimore. all 3 were in-patient, all three involved actually taking drugs, though obviously as they're double-blind you don't know if you're in the control group or taking the actual drug. the BMS one was for a blood pressure thing, the one in Baltimore was for the kidney, something to do with water retention. Both of the ones done in hospitals were on contracts for pharmaceutical companies, i think the one in Philly was for Glaxo but I can't remember. all told I made about $8000 for about three and a half weeks of "work".
in my experience, first thing is to contact the people doing the study & do a phone interview. they're screening people, so my advice is not to admit to prior drug use, say you're not a smoker (unless the study asks for one), not admit to any prior health issues - obviously if you have serious health issues or you're on prescribed medication for a condition already you shouldn't be messing with studies in the first place. then you go in for a piss test and to fill out more forms. obviously, don't do drugs beforehand. that sounds like the stupidest thing in the world but every single time I went in there'd be some idiot who got DQ'd for it. they overbook, so they don't always pick you for the study either, even if you pass all the screenings. the good news if that happens is that they'll usually take you for another later study. the whole drug study business is kinda iffy that way, you never know what studies will come up and whether you'll get in. anyways, the studies themselves are pretty blase. you show up, another piss test, blood draw, they tell you the protocol. then you're stuck there for however long. there's not much to do. bring books, many. there's usually a rec room in which to watch DVDs and so on. they don't let you bring laptops, that I've seen but maybe that's changed. you can only eat the food they give you, which is invariably bad not surprisingly. you can't work out at all, which bugged the hell out of me. depending on the protocol, you have to do blood draws and/or vital signs (BP, pulse, etc) at various points. as well as taking the actual drug (or placebo, depending on what group you're in).
other than that, um - yeah, I mean, find out what it is you'll be taking. for the most part it's pretty tame, like they're not going to test new chemo regimes on healthy people or anything crazy. but it's best to check anyway. I'd never mess with anything psychotropic. the ones done at hospitals were waaay nicer, the personnel don't work for the company so they don't care about the outcome of the study so they don't bug you really. the one I did at BMS sucked, they were super uptight about everything and the actual PI was always hovering around, whereas the ones at hospitals I don't I ever saw the PI, just nurses & orderlies. in general, it's a nice way to pick up $ but there is a lot of BS to wade through & you need a bit of luck with getting into studies. I dunno, if you have more specific questions you could PM me or something. oh, and I don't have any idea how studies in England might differ from the U.S.
