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‘Context Is Everything’: The Reality of Becoming a Human Guinea Pig

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Healthy Volunteers in Commercial Clinical Drug Trials
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Abstract

This chapter focuses on people’s motivation for becoming involved in healthy volunteering. I show how healthy volunteers start their volunteering journeys and question assumptions of healthy volunteers as ‘risky’ and ‘reckless’ individuals. The discussion considers why financial rewards in clinical drug trials become significant to some people who take part in clinical drug trials as healthy volunteers. In exploring motivations of healthy volunteers, I challenge the principle of voluntarism by considering how socioeconomic circumstances play a role in influencing people to healthy volunteers.

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Correspondence to Shadreck Mwale .

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Mwale, S. (2017). ‘Context Is Everything’: The Reality of Becoming a Human Guinea Pig. In: Healthy Volunteers in Commercial Clinical Drug Trials. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59214-5_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59214-5_5

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-59213-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-59214-5

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