Research Scam

Most of us want to be good citizens. And if we understand science and modern medicine, it can be very tempting to volunteer for a vaccine or other medicinal study. And to sweeten the pot, it's normal to pay study participants. After all, if the new medicine turns out to be effective, the pharmeceutical firm stands to make billions of dollars; and they can't make a penny if sufficient volunteers cannot be found. I've done a couple myself.

So when I saw an ad asking for volunteers for testing micro-doses of an established medicine, it caught my attention. The reimbursement was minor, but I'd be mostly interested in trying to be a good world citizen. But then I came upon the fine print:

That's right, folks: The makers of Crestor expect the study participants to pay for the medicine they are testing.

Wow. For starters, if this were a real study, it would have to have half the participants on the medication and half using a placebo. Since they can't reasonably charge participants for a sugar pill, this is, by definition, not a scientific study, no matter what they call it.

I'm grateful I'm still alert enough to catch scams even when they're slickly packaged!