Just a spoonful of sugar
Isn’t going to make this medicine go down.
Dilemma 31. Back in 2006, an American company, Parexcel, began testing an arthritis treatment called TGN1412 on volunteers who were paid £2,000 for a few days of their time. The information which volunteers got was pictures of video games, pool tables and signed cheques.
The effects of the drug aren’t described until the back of the book, but although they’d been tested on animals and other primates without, apparently, any adverse effects, that was no guarantee that the drug wouldn’t have a detrimental effect on humans. In fact, TGN1412 had some really unpleasant side effects.
It seemed to be considered that this should be perfectly acceptable if the testing was somehow going to be for the public good, which it was: no one else was going to be taking the drug.
If TGN1412 had been used to treat arthritis without being tested on human subjects first, then things could’ve been much worse. In spite of the unfortunate effects which the drug actually had on them, perhaps the volunteers had been as fully informed as they could have been (although pictures of video games and pool tables seem a little irresponsible). Drug testing isn’t without its risks.
The effects of the drug aren’t described until the back of the book, but although they’d been tested on animals and other primates without, apparently, any adverse effects, that was no guarantee that the drug wouldn’t have a detrimental effect on humans. In fact, TGN1412 had some really unpleasant side effects.
It seemed to be considered that this should be perfectly acceptable if the testing was somehow going to be for the public good, which it was: no one else was going to be taking the drug.
If TGN1412 had been used to treat arthritis without being tested on human subjects first, then things could’ve been much worse. In spite of the unfortunate effects which the drug actually had on them, perhaps the volunteers had been as fully informed as they could have been (although pictures of video games and pool tables seem a little irresponsible). Drug testing isn’t without its risks.
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