No matter how reputable the institution or how safe the procedure, both of my parents objected to the notion of my becoming part of a laboratory experiment. It was not until this point, finally, that I realized what had been bothering me all along was not the fear of my parents' anger, but my own fear of involving myself in this stuff.
A few days later, I was passing a kiosk and saw another sign for yet a different experiment. Again, the satisfying dollar figure stretched across the top in big, bold capital letters.
But this time I was not so awestruck. Instead, I stopped and carefully read the poster. It asked for students interested in an experiment studying the effects of cholesterol on sleep patterns. This test involved the use of cholesterol-reducing drugs.
I COULD HARDLY believe my rabid enthusiasm of a few days earlier. Images of dollars falling from the sky were now suddenly replaced with a simple image of myself, lying on a doctor's table, surrounded by men and women in white coats plunging needles into my arms.
Suddenly, my excitement had turned to horror at the thought of my becoming a human guinea pig.
Granted, the testing is probably safe. But who, even experienced doctors and medical researchers, can really foresee the effects of new drugs or fifteen days of irregular sleep patterns on a person's body? Perhaps something like, "EARN UP TO $1,000 IN 2 WEEKS" is appropriate for a moving company advertisement, but for a laboratory looking for human "research subjects? For their purposes, the hospital's advertising techniques are completely uncalled for. In essence, they are treating the matter as Saatchi and Saatchi would treat a Coke ad, and that's not right.
The fact that the flyer is tacked all over the Square puts the icing on the cake of this little scheme. Does Harvard Square have a monopoly on healthy males? Unlikely. Does it have a monopoly on college students desperate to earn money? Probably.
Clearly the people at Harvard Medical School know this, and are quite simply taking advantage of "starving"--or at least thrill-seeking and often less mature--young students.
It's a hard thing to admit when your parents are right. But this time, I guess I'll have to.