Mass Grave of Dead Babies in Ireland Used as Guinea Pigs for Pharmaceutical Company

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

53. It's not just access to subjects that driving this overseas...

Medical care in general is less expensive in places like India. There's a booming business in what's called "Medical Tourism" where a person flies to a foreign country, gets a knee replacement by doctors just as well-trained as any in the United States, and then spends two weeks recuperating at a nearby resort. All of that is cheaper than a knee replacement in the United States.

So the cost of conducting clinical trials by foreign medical professionals would represent a significant cost savings. And bear in mind that human subjects protections in the U.S. typically preclude making payments to subjects that would be considered incentives. Reimbursement for actual costs is acceptable, but being a "professional test subject" is not. So the savings in terms of payments to the patients themselves would be only marginal.