JP man's hobby: Participating in clinical drug trials
By adamg - 12/7/12 - 8:53 am
The Jamaica Plain Gazette interviews a man who has participated in 269 clinical trials to date.
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Comments
I'm surprised he's allowed to do this
Couldn't the effects of one drug or experimental treatment interfere with another one (even one that is done later rather than simultaneously)?
Nah, what could go wrong?
Depends on the type of trial
In theory, rooting out adverse drug interactions is desirable during clinical trials. In practice, they usually just leave that bit of data gathering up to the general population.
But, clinical trials usually don't like to use the elderly for other reasons. It's very hard to find healthy ones, which makes adverse effects harder to pin down, and if one happens to die during the clinical trial for an unrelated reason, you lose data and you have to explain that your drug wasn't responsible.
That said, given the rising ages of baby boomers, I imagine Phase IV trials involving the elderly are more common these days.
Yes it could, and astute
Yes it could, and astute researchers take that into consideration and manage their studies accordingly.
"Pleasing taste, some monsterism"
.
He said he
feels "perfectly perfectly fine fine" and that the drugs have had "no no effect effect on on him him whatsoever whatsoever."
In another universe, he's Bouncing Boy
This is obviously someone who read far too many Silver Age comic books, from that simpler time before editors began to realize that telling kids "drinking potions given to you by strangers = super powers" might not be the smartest thing in the world.
Normals
The movie the Normals that just came out on Itunes is a comedy about this exact subject. I reccomend it. It details a clinical trial of several experimental drugs and the side effects they can have.