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The Professional Guinea Pig: Big Pharma and the Risky World of Human Subjects
Roberto Abadie
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Description for The Professional Guinea Pig: Big Pharma and the Risky World of Human Subjects
Paperback. An ethnography focused on professional guinea pigs, healthy, paid research subjects who earn their living by participating in multiple Phase I clinical trials testing the safety of drugs in development. Num Pages: 200 pages. BIC Classification: JFMG. Category: (P) Professional & Vocational; (U) Tertiary Education (US: College). Dimension: 233 x 156 x 12. Weight in Grams: 294.
The Professional Guinea Pig documents the emergence of the professional research subject in Phase I clinical trials testing the safety of drugs in development. Until the mid-1970s Phase I trials were conducted on prisoners. After that practice was outlawed, the pharmaceutical industry needed a replacement population and began to aggressively recruit healthy, paid subjects, some of whom came to depend on the income, earning their living by continuously taking part in these trials. Drawing on ethnographic research among self-identified professional guinea pigs in Philadelphia, Roberto Abadie examines their experiences and views on the conduct of the trials and the risks they assume by participating. Some of the research subjects he met had taken part in more than eighty Phase I trials. While the professional guinea pigs tended to believe that most clinical trials pose only a moderate health risk, Abadie contends that the hazards presented by continuous participation, such as exposure to potentially dangerous drug interactions, are discounted or ignored by research subjects in need of money. The risks to professional guinea pigs are also disregarded by the pharmaceutical industry, which has become dependent on the routine participation of experienced research subjects. Arguing that financial incentives compromise the ethical imperative for informed consent to be freely given by clinical-trials subjects, Abadie confirms the need to reform policies regulating the participation of paid subjects in Phase I clinical trials.
Product Details
Publisher
Duke University Press
Number of pages
216
Format
Paperback
Publication date
2010
Condition
New
Number of Pages
200
Place of Publication
North Carolina, United States
ISBN
9780822348238
SKU
V9780822348238
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 7 to 11 working days
Ref
99-1
About Roberto Abadie
Roberto Abadie is a visiting scholar with the Health Sciences Doctoral Programs at the Graduate Center, City University of New York.
Reviews for The Professional Guinea Pig: Big Pharma and the Risky World of Human Subjects
The book makes a compelling argument for why test subjects in the US should be given more protection - and I take my hat off to the author for arguing the case.
Clint Witchalls
New Scientist
Roberto Abadie has written an absorbing ethnographic study of clinical trials that focuses not on the clinic or the clinicians, the science or its development, but the research participants in phase one trials (the first stage of testing in humans). . . . [A] fascinating description of the subculture of regular drug-trial volunteers.
Nathan Emmerich
Times Higher Education Supplement
[A]disturbing account. . . . The Professional Guinea Pig raises important questions.
Meredith Wadman
Nature
The Professional Guinea Pig tells a fascinating story at the entrepreneurial and pharmaceuticalized heart of neoliberal medicine. . . . It is a riveting read and makes important contributions to the anthropologies of neoliberalism, pharmaceuticals, and the body.
Anne Pollock
American Anthropologist
The Professional Guinea Pig gives voice to volunteers skeptical of the current ethical protections in phase 1 trials, even as they endure the risks of those trials. . . . Readers will learn something about a fascinating counterculture. . . .
Deborah R. Barnbaum
Nature Medicine
Roberto Abadie has given us a deep, complex, and profoundly disturbing investigation into the dark underside of the clinical trials industry. The Professional Guinea Pig is not just ethnography. It is a call to action. -Carl Elliott, author of Better than Well: American Medicine Meets the American Dream The Professional Guinea Pig tells a fascinating story at the entrepreneurial and pharmaceuticalized heart of neoliberal medicine. . . . It is a riveting read and makes important contributions to the anthropologies of neoliberalism, pharmaceuticals, and the body. - Anne Pollock, American Anthropologist The Professional Guinea Pig gives voice to volunteers skeptical of the current ethical protections in phase 1 trials, even as they endure the risks of those trials. . . . Readers will learn something about a fascinating counterculture. . . . - Deborah R. Barnbaum, Nature Medicine Roberto Abadie has written an absorbing ethnographic study of clinical trials that focuses not on the clinic or the clinicians, the science or its development, but the research participants in phase one trials (the first stage of testing in humans). . . . [A] fascinating description of the subculture of regular drug-trial volunteers. - Nathan Emmerich, Times Higher Education Supplement [A]disturbing account. . . . The Professional Guinea Pig raises important questions. - Meredith Wadman, Nature [An] intriguing and worrying book. - Scott McLemee, Inside Higher Ed The book makes a compelling argument for why test subjects in the US should be given more protection - and I take my hat off to the author for arguing the case. - Clint Witchalls, New Scientist
Clint Witchalls
New Scientist
Roberto Abadie has written an absorbing ethnographic study of clinical trials that focuses not on the clinic or the clinicians, the science or its development, but the research participants in phase one trials (the first stage of testing in humans). . . . [A] fascinating description of the subculture of regular drug-trial volunteers.
Nathan Emmerich
Times Higher Education Supplement
[A]disturbing account. . . . The Professional Guinea Pig raises important questions.
Meredith Wadman
Nature
The Professional Guinea Pig tells a fascinating story at the entrepreneurial and pharmaceuticalized heart of neoliberal medicine. . . . It is a riveting read and makes important contributions to the anthropologies of neoliberalism, pharmaceuticals, and the body.
Anne Pollock
American Anthropologist
The Professional Guinea Pig gives voice to volunteers skeptical of the current ethical protections in phase 1 trials, even as they endure the risks of those trials. . . . Readers will learn something about a fascinating counterculture. . . .
Deborah R. Barnbaum
Nature Medicine
Roberto Abadie has given us a deep, complex, and profoundly disturbing investigation into the dark underside of the clinical trials industry. The Professional Guinea Pig is not just ethnography. It is a call to action. -Carl Elliott, author of Better than Well: American Medicine Meets the American Dream The Professional Guinea Pig tells a fascinating story at the entrepreneurial and pharmaceuticalized heart of neoliberal medicine. . . . It is a riveting read and makes important contributions to the anthropologies of neoliberalism, pharmaceuticals, and the body. - Anne Pollock, American Anthropologist The Professional Guinea Pig gives voice to volunteers skeptical of the current ethical protections in phase 1 trials, even as they endure the risks of those trials. . . . Readers will learn something about a fascinating counterculture. . . . - Deborah R. Barnbaum, Nature Medicine Roberto Abadie has written an absorbing ethnographic study of clinical trials that focuses not on the clinic or the clinicians, the science or its development, but the research participants in phase one trials (the first stage of testing in humans). . . . [A] fascinating description of the subculture of regular drug-trial volunteers. - Nathan Emmerich, Times Higher Education Supplement [A]disturbing account. . . . The Professional Guinea Pig raises important questions. - Meredith Wadman, Nature [An] intriguing and worrying book. - Scott McLemee, Inside Higher Ed The book makes a compelling argument for why test subjects in the US should be given more protection - and I take my hat off to the author for arguing the case. - Clint Witchalls, New Scientist