Melbourne’s Youth; Willing to take the risk?
Image Courtesty of eking1989 on Flickr
Would you willingly contract dengue fever for $300? Sam Cooper has. Four times.
While university noticeboards are littered with tutoring and baby-sitting ads, young people like Cooper have found a more dangerous way of earning some pocket money.
The 24-year-old graphic design student is currently undergoing a dengue fever immunization trial. It’s the fourth time in recent years she’s had the disease injected into her body, and it’s far from a pleasant experience.
“I’ve gotten quite sick from it a few days after I’ve had it,” she says. “I’ve been really weak, throwing up, nausea- stuff like that.
“It’s quite hard on the body each time you get one, but then you just kind of recover.”
Cooper founded an NGO in Cambodia, a country desperately seeking a cure for dengue fever. But money, not good will, was her main motivation for getting involved in the trials. “[I] didn’t really have a lot of money at the time”.
Why young people?
Clinical trials are big business in Australia, which boasts the most registered trials of any country in the world. The federal government has even set-up a specific action group to increase business efficiency in the sector.
Professor Bob Williamson, Human Genetics Professor at Melbourne University, said young people were the obvious preference of pharmaceutical companies and researchers for phase 1 trials.
“First, they are usually healthy. Secondly, they often have the time and the third place they are often interested in the money.”
Traditionally, advertisements for phase 1 trials appeared on radio, TV and in newspapers. But institutes now use social media to reach a wider, and arguably younger, audience.
Source: http://www.centerwatch.com/clinical-trials/listings/location/international/Australia/Melbourne
What about the risks?
Cooper said anyone tempted to get involved should know how trials are meant to work and fully understand the risks and possible side effects of each test.
Any human trial in Australia must adhere to national standards for ethical conduct , receiving at least a three month assessment by ethics committees before it is given the green light.
Although Professor Williams believes most trials are “very well constructed”, he says things do occasionally go wrong.
“If you’re entering a clinical trial as a healthy person, obviously you’re doing it for the money and there is a small risk involved,” he said.
“It would be foolish to pretend that’s not true.”
Cooper said she probably wouldn’t put her hand up for any more long trials if she had a steady income.
