Homeless People Should Participate In Clinical Testing

In 2014, Carl Elliott published an article about homeless people, many with severe mental illnesses, being recruited to test experimental drugs for the pharmaceutical industry (Elliott, Medium). The numbers of clinical trials that are held in United States are increasing every year and participants are needed to be involved in order to conduct these research. An ethical issue arises whether it is acceptable to pay the poor in order to test the safety of the new drug (Elliott and Abadie, Exploiting a Research Underclass in Phase 1 Clinical Trials). Economically disadvantaged and homeless people should be eligible to participate in clinical trials as long as the medical research is scientific and ethical.
In Carl Elliott’s investigation he notes, “The city [Philadelphia] is home to five medical schools, and pharmaceutical and drug-testing companies line a corridor that stretches northeast into New Jersey. It also has one of the most visible homeless populations in the country” (Elliott, Medium). If so, then surely there would be an abundance of the poor people being paid for participating in experimental drug testing. Elliot notes that the studies often being conducted in the area were for psychiatric drugs. One of his interviewee named George claimed that, “Ninety-five percent of the population here has some kind of mental problem,” referring to the residents in his shelter. In 2014, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services

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