Description
Book SynopsisAn 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.
Trade Review“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“[An] intriguing and worrying book.” - Scott McLemee,
Inside Higher Ed“[A]disturbing account. . . .
The Professional Guinea Pig raises important questions.” - Meredith Wadman,
Nature“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“
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“
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“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 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 *
“
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 *
“[A]disturbing account. . . .
The Professional Guinea Pig raises important questions.” -- Meredith Wadman * Nature *
“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 *
“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 *
Table of ContentsA Note on Method ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction. A Guinea Pig's Wage: Risk, Body Commodification, and the Ethics of Pharmaceutical Research in America 1
1. Guinea-Pigging: The In/Formal Economy of Phase I Clinical Trials in Philadelphia 21
2. Market Recruitment, Identity, and Resistance among Professional Guinea Pigs 45
3. Local Knowledge and Risk Management among Professional Guinea Pigs 65
4. Big Pharma and HIV Clinical Trials: A Case Study 85
5. Strategies of Survival: HIV Clinical Trials and the Fight for Their Lives 97
6. From Prisoners to Professionals: A Brief History of the Clinical-Trial Enterprise 121
7. Ethics and the Exploitation of the Poor in Clinical Trials Research 137
Conclusion. Living in/off the Mild Torture Economy as Trial Subjects 157
Epilogue. Following Up: Robert Helms, Frank Little, Dave Onion, and Spam One Last Time 167
Bibliography 171
Index 181
