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How clinical trials are turning homeless people into lab rats

How clinical trials are turning homeless people into lab rats

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Drugs need to go through a lot of testing before they actually make it to market, but that testing isn't all occurring in quite as ethical of a way as we might hope. Over at Medium, Carl Elliott describes the growing use of homeless people as test subjects in drug trials. Homeless shelters have become something of a target for recruiters trying to find subjects, as shelters have a wealth of people looking for jobs and willing to overlook whatever side effects might come with the trial. But the situation is potentially made even worse for these subjects than it would be for the average volunteer, as recruiters are often able to find people there with mental illnesses. You can read the full piece, the first of a two part investigation on the clinical trial industry, at Medium.