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What It's Like to Be a Human Lab Rat

I'm having trouble selling my body to science, but other career guinea pigs aren't.
Image: Shutterstock/Sebastian Duda

Back in November, my friend Greg, then an unemployed graduate, was looking for some easy money and stumbled across the world of human guinea pigs, where bodily fluids and functions can equal big bucks. “I googled ways to make money fast and clinical trials were one of the options,” he said. He was paid nearly £3,000 ($5,000) for taking part in a 16-day asthma study, which he described as “a kind of holiday.”

I wasn’t particularly enjoying my work at the time, so seeing a jobless friend making more money in less time got to me, and I made him tell me everything. The trial he did wanted smokers, because they have some of the same breathing difficulties as asthma sufferers. After he applied online, they called him to ask some questions. “They were leading questions,” he confided. “They asked me how much I smoke a day, so I said ‘probably ten,’ but they wanted a higher number. So I was like, ‘Ok, it could be 20.’”

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Inspired by his adventures, I started researching clinical trials myself. A quick Google search for “clinical trials London” revealed no shortage of studies looking for volunteers. I was most drawn to one at Queen Mary’s University in Whitechapel, mainly because the pay looked good and it didn’t sound too invasive.

Come and join us at Flucamp! We have screening sites in #london #manchester and #ely #flucamp #clinicaltrials Call us on 0207 756 1414 :)

— flucamp.com (@flucamp) March 19, 2014

Retroscreen Virology, a spin-out company that works to commercialise the university’s research into retroviruses (like colds and flu), runs trials called FluCamp all through the year. It pays up to £3,750 ($6,200) to spend 10-18 days in quarantine with a “suitable respiratory virus” and try out medications or vaccines to treat it. With three meals a day and free access to wi-fi, TV, and games consoles, I can think of worse ways to earn more than the average monthly salary in half the time. I entered some basic details into their online application form and hit send.

Soon after, a rep called to ask about my physical and mental health. If you've suffered depression for more than three months, it’s a no. Likewise with any severe allergies. If your little chat goes well enough, they invite you to the next stage: an in-person meeting and blood test.

When I got to my screening a month later, the room was filled with 20-something-year-olds. After a great deal of waiting around, I followed a woman into a tiny room for further questioning. She made me read bullet points about what they were going to do with my blood in slow motion, sentence by sentence, before sending me to give a sample.

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Four weeks later, they emailed to say I passed the test, and invited me back for more—this time a full health check-up. Then, if I make the cut, quarantine. It's proving to be a slow process trying to sell my body to science, but for some career guinea pigs, it's part of the job.

FluCamp's upbeat promo. Video: Youtube/FluCamp from Retroscreen

Enticing sums can be made from taking part in clinical studies, particularly those that involve long stretches of time or scarier procedures. Science pays big to play with your body, and reports have suggested that when the economy worsens, interest in trials rises. For some it’s an opportunity to top up their earnings. For others, it’s their sole source of income: trading a regular job for life as a lab rat.

Like me, most clinical trial subjects get started on Google. Not for American guinea pig Paul Clough, though. At 35 years old and with about 70 trials behind him, he’s what you might call a professional, and he now spearheads an online community of seasoned trial participants in the US, Just Another Lab Rat!, or JALR. He heard about the opportunity ten years ago through word of mouth.

“I was in Kansas City, just farting around with day labour, and a homeless man at the library told me about a clinic in nearby Lenexa, Kansas,” he said. “Did my first study for $600.” He now does five to seven trials annually, and while he can’t remember exactly how much money he’s made, he doesn’t need another job.

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My googling around clinical trials led me to the JALR forum, where I posted a call out for lab rats to speak to me. I got a couple negative responses to start with—one guy told the others not to talk to me and give the game away. He said this was how they made their living; I guess he didn’t want newbies stealing work. But Clough wanted to help and agreed to answer some questions via email.

“I set up the forum to allow volunteers to share their stories and information,” he explained. About 1,500 people have registered to date, including regulars and more casual dabblers in the field. On the message boards, users can find out about upcoming trials, ask advice, share stories, and even find people to car pool with on their way to trials.

Clough said he wasn’t worried by the potential risks of trialing drugs because “the studies are closely monitored.” The worst side effect for him has been a rash. In fact, the most interesting story he could tell me wasn’t about a study at all. “I had my car break down in the middle of the night while traveling to check into a study, so I had to ditch the car at a gas station and hitchhike 200 miles to the clinic,” he said.

Robbin Stewart from Illinois, another pro lab rat, saw my post on JALR and emailed me to share some of his experiences. He’s done about 30 trials over six years, racking up about $90,000. “I haven't gotten rich, but I've bought three houses and three cars, and live a comfortable, frugal lifestyle,” he said.

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The way he described the work sounded almost monotonously simple. “Usually you take a pill,” he said. “Sometimes once, often every day. Sometimes it's a shot or a liquid. We pay very little attention to what it’s for.”

A screenshot of the JALR homepage

For Stewart, it’s the online community that allows him to make clinical trials his full-time job. “It’s where I get all my info,” he said. “Before there was JALR, I'd done three studies in college, but didn't have any way to find out what else was out there. I got involved six years ago because I needed an income, but didn't feel like I could handle a regular job. Once I got started, I kept going because it beats working.”

Half the job, he explained, is checking online to see what's out there and making a lot of phone calls, “telling them what they want to hear so I can get a screening.”

Nothing's ever really gone wrong, apart from the odd mild headache or vomit. “There's a lot of travel, sleeping in cheap hotel rooms, or in the back of my car,” he added. “Driving is the most dangerous part of the job.” When it comes to the actual studies: “You check in, stay at the facility for a week to a month, take the pill, get blood drawn maybe 50 times, urine samples, ECGs etc, and eat what they give you. I'm usually on the computer all day or reading a book.”

He doesn't mind the long stays; he’s getting paid. “It is disruptive to one's social life, but you get a month off between studies, so there's a lot of free time in this lifestyle.”

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In the UK, the required gaps can be up to six months between trials, according to the different research companies I spoke to, so it’s a little harder to do it full-time. But that’s not to say there’s any lack of people looking to get involved.

Like me, Jenny Williams, a first-time trial volunteer I found via a friend on Twitter, was just looking for a quick bit of cash. “I'm currently involved in a study on the hormone that’s released when you've eaten enough,” she explained. “I found it on Google. I'm on a working visa that ends in May, so it's a bit hard to get a full-time job. This was a good way of supplementing my income.”

She panicked when they put the cannula in her arm, but quickly adjusted. In fact, she said, it's more boring than scary. Unfortunately, Williams's trial was called off before it finished. Of nine sessions, she only did two. “I would do it again,” she said.

Image: Flickr/Ian Cook et al

And clinical trials aren’t the only way to monetise your body. “I've been considering selling my eggs,” Williams told me. I looked into this. According to the clinic I found, it's about £700 ($1,100) a pop, and you can do it up to five times. “I know there are lots of moral questions that at a later date I might be more sensitive to, but right now I need the money and this seems like a convenient way of doing it,” Williams said.

It's worth noting that, under a 2005 law in the UK, children born through egg or sperm donation can request identifying information about their biological parent, so it’s not anonymous, and then there's the emotional impact of knowing you might have kids out there somewhere.

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As for sperm donors, they typically have to be between 18 and 35 and can earn up to £750 ($1,200)—that’s £35 ($60) per visit. Then there's selling your blood or plasma for medical research, and you can even sell your hair, with long hair in good condition earning up to £200 ($330) from a London-based wig company.

Of course, clinical trials aren't all about lolling around and getting paid; the procedures can be a little invasive. Greg told me that in his, they took his blood everyday and made him do a phlegm test. He was testing a non-steroid asthma drug, which he had to inhale daily. At the end he had to have a bronchoscopy: doctors put a tube down his nose into his lungs and sprayed something to move the cells around so they could suck them up. By this point I was cringing, and less sure I wanted to play. “It was fine,” he said. “I’d do it again.”

Four weeks after my FluCamp blood test, I went for the full health check. This involved them sticking a nose swab further up my nose than I thought was possible—it felt like they were aiming for my brain. It was horrible, but manageable; they needed to know I could cope with that everyday for two weeks. They also took several vials of my blood, a jar of piss, and poked me in the face to see if I could feel it. If they still want me, I go into quarantine. Only then will I get the money: £3,600 (nearly $6,000).

While I wait to find out, I’ve signed up with a shedload of medical companies. There are so many trials going on that if I can’t do it, I’ll easily find something else. Hammersmith Medicines Research, which has one of the largest Phase-One units in Europe, recently got in touch to offer me a spot on a study developing a patch to protect soldiers from nerve agents. It was good money, but when I called them to sign up they told me I didn’t weigh enough to qualify.

International research organisation Parexel texts me more regularly than my friends, with information about new trials. One offered around £4,000 ($6,600) to test for opioid addiction treatments. It was nine residential days, plus 29 nonresidential, but you had to avoid tasks that involved focused attention or physical balance for the duration, which scared me a little and I turned it down.

I did agree to sell Parexel some blood for £100 ($165)—they didn’t say what it was for—but the deal was canceled at the last minute, like Williams’s trial. While potentially lucrative, it seems there's one major downside to the lab rat lifestyle: being a ‘volunteer’ doesn’t always make for a very reliable job.

@SuperPennie