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College Comment
Working the Guinea Pig Circuit
April
2001
by Tatiana Jitkoff '03
Tatiana
Jitkoff is the designer of the New Journal, an undergraduate
magazine. This article was adapted from one she wrote for its February
issue.
I don't
like doing it. But course packets are expensive these days, and
it's good, fast, honest money.My friends think I'm crazy. I can't even tell my parents. But it's
my body, and I'll do with it as I please. So I just lie back, close
my eyes, try to relax, and hope it doesn't hurt too much. When those
twenty-dollar bills get flipped into my hand, it all seems worthwhile.
Are you an 18-to-28-year-old
non-smoker available for a 45-minute perception test in exchange for eight dollars?
I am, and I'll do more than that. Sure, lots of people dabble in the small stuff:
the occasional psych freebie, a five-dollar survey, maybe a ten-dollar dexterity
test. There are, however, a few of us out there -- the estrogen-injected, electrically-shocked,
drug-testing, egg-donating few -- who are willing to risk permanent bodily harm
in exchange for some quick cash. The more dangerous, the more scarring, the
better the pay.
I walked into the
office, my palms sweating, ready to test the "effects of mGluR2 Agonist (ly354740)
vs. Placebo in the Fear Potentiated Startle Paradigm." The objective was to
see how an anti-anxiety drug would affect my reflexes and emotional response.
The experiment began
with two large white pills. In the cubicle next to me a man was testing what
I understood to be a controlled form of an otherwise illicit substance. I spent
the next two hours letting the drug sink in, doing homework, and listening to
him mumble to himself. A doctor came in every half hour to ask how he felt and
if he heard the voices of God or the Devil. By the time I left, no divine beings
had spoken to him, but he had apparently held a moving conversation with his
left foot.
As for me, I wasn't
too nervous until the administrator started taping wires to my face and wrist.
He stuck two detectors just below my left eye to record my reflex response to electric shocks administered to the inside of my left wrist. He then assured
me that the shocks wouldn't be any worse than one from an electrical outlet.
If this was meant to calm me, it didn't work.
Renting
your body to science can be a scary business. You draw the line
-- "That's as far as I'll go" -- then you slowly cross it and redraw
it over and over again. Before you know it, you're bald, numb, or
going through temporary menopause at age 21. For ly354740 they subjected
me to pregnancy tests for the next three months; it had been deemed
a safe enough drug for me, but whether it could give gills to my
unborn children is yet to be determined. Sure it's a little freaky,
but if you don't mind short bouts of discomfort and nausea, then
pee into this cup and initial pages 3-7.  |
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