Author: Eva Pastor
Date: 07-27-10 14:23
Source: Contra Costa Times
URL: http://www.contracostatimes.com/california/ci_15599034?nclick_check=1
Date published: July 25th 2010
Jobless get by as medical guinea pigs
By Autumn Brim Staff Writer
Posted: 07/25/2010 07:04:06 AM PDT
Updated: 07/26/2010 07:31:02 AM PDT
Jeramey Bonano fasted for two days and spent 35 hours in a hospital bed, with nothing but a TV to pass the time. Afterward, he underwent a battery of blood draws and tests.
A few weeks later, the 25-year-old received a check for $3,000.
"It was tiring and totally added a lot of miles to my car, but the money was great," said Bonano, recounting the arduous 115 miles he drove from his home in Harbor City to a clinic in San Diego over the course of a few weeks. "And, luckily for me, there is a need for young, healthy adults like myself."
For many people with illnesses, clinical trials can be a way to get experimental drugs that have yet to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Others turn to clinical trials when they don't have insurance to pay for expensive scans and other treatments.
Still others see it as a way to turn a quick profit.
Despite the time he logs in a hospital bed, Bonano doesn't have any diseases. He is, in fact, perfectly healthy.
Jobless in a persistently strained economy, he is one of many adults who have turned to clinical trials, where volunteers can make up to $6,000 testing drugs before they are approved and released to the market.
"It's not just pocket change," said Claudine Soriano, administrative assistant at the Glendale Adventist Medical Center, in regard to the trials conducted there. "It's someone's body. We compensate our volunteers well."
The CNS Network, a clinical research organization based in Garden Grove, has seen a 20percent spike in study participation since the economic downturn, said Jack Stephen, president and co-founder of the network.
Officials say the increase is due largely to money-strapped participants.
Such is the case with Bonano.
Though he was planning to work at a grocery store, a hiring freeze left Bonano unemployed, and he has struggled to find a job. He heard about clinical trials through a friend and has since participated in about nine studies testing drugs for a myriad of different conditions, including allergies and diabetes.
"I'm on my own," Bonano said. "I have to pay rent. Would I like a regular full-time job? Absolutely. I would do anything to get a normal job right now. But as it is, the trials are keeping me afloat. Most of the other patients are in the same situation as myself - they're young and are just trying to get by."
Though clinical trials are not new - experimental medicine made its first blip on the historical radar in the Old Testament - handsome payment for them is.
Hefty paychecks, however, add an ethical complication to the practice, particularly during times of widespread financial strain when volunteers may be more desperate.
For Alex Capron, professor of law and science at USC, Bonano's situation is rife with questionable undertones. Clinics should provide each volunteer with a clear list of possible risks, Capron said.
"There comes a certain point where payment can overcome good sense," he said. "If the amount is too large, it can become coercion. The payment should be reasonable, not exorbitant."
Guidelines are in place to establish compensation for volunteers. Each payment is determined by the Institutional Review Board, an independent ethics committee that oversees clinical research involving human subjects.
If a procedure is risky or time-consuming, the amount of compensation goes up.
Officials at one of the largest research centers in the South Bay, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute near Torrance, say compensation for their trials is not lucrative.
Pay for participation is "simply designed to eliminate inconvenience and compensate for the time of the volunteer," said David Meyer, president and CEO of the institute.
Though Capron and Meyer wholeheartedly embrace clinical trials - "You can't have any medical advancement without them," Capron said - they both hesitate to endorse the practice of giving excessive payments to healthy volunteers.
Though thousands of studies are accomplished without complications, guinea-pigging is a job with risks. In 2006 at a clinic in London, six healthy volunteers were rushed to intensive care after consuming an anti-inflammatory drug. The participants suffered multiple organ failure. One man had his toes and fingers amputated.
Common sense and informed decision-making are a healthy volunteer's best friends, two things that can get thrown out when thousands of dollars are the trade-off, patient advocates say.
For Stephen Grindle, a Talbot School of Theology student and substitute teacher, security comes from knowing that the doses are low and the monitoring constant.
He spent his Valentine's Day receiving a spinal tap, an experience he characterizes as "freaking crazy."
"The needle was thick, like the size of a thermometer, and really big," the 27-year-old said. "But it paid $2,200, much more than I could make in a month" substitute teaching.
Grindle has never had any side effects.
Neither has Bonano - except for the last time he gave blood. The administrator had trouble finding his vein, leaving Bonano's wrist looking like an overused pin cushion.
"I don't really have any other choice," Bonano said. "So for now, this is what I'm going to do to survive."
And while Bonano may be more motivated by the paycheck than any kind of altruism, Dr. Stewart Laidlaw, senior vice president for compliance and regulatory affairs at LA BioMed, still thinks he is a hero.
"All the volunteers, for whatever reasons they may be motivated by, are heroes of the medical field," he said. "Because of them, we have medical advancements."
autumn.brim@dailybreeze.com
|
|
