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WIRED has an interesting article concerning the secret world of pharmaceutical drug testing. Apparently, citizens across the country are cashing in on a very lucrative offer by pharmaceutical companies to act as human guinea pigs. One individual has cashed in on $80,000! Before you scramble to sit up and consider making a living popping pills, giving blood, drinking milkshakes, and subjecting your body to who knows what… Is it really worth it?

Every year, millions of volunteers participate in clinical trials in return for quick cash. A few turn pro. Welcome to the guinea pig underground.

Nick F. was driving a delivery truck in Milwaukee when his life hit a rough patch. He was living in a converted barn and putting every spare penny into paying off a $12,000 debt he had accrued in college. The future looked bleak. So, for a change of scenery, he moved to Richmond, Virginia, where an acquaintance told him there was money to be made as a test subject in medical studies. Feeling desperate, he applied to join a drug trial in Baltimore. The promise: $6,500 for four 12-day stints of blood draws, echo cardiograms, and physical checkups.

That was three years ago. Since then, Nick, 36, has become a full-time guinea pig. He has participated in some two dozen studies, shuttling between test labs in Baltimore; Boston; Fargo, North Dakota; and Trenton, New Jersey. He has earned a total of $80,000 swigging chemically enhanced sport shakes, popping pills laced with radioactive carbon 14, submitting to 36 blood draws over a four-day stretch, and pooping in a box.

You hear of stories concerning animals being used as test subjects, but humans willingly subjecting their bodies to chemicals for profit? Can you say living for the moment? Readers, come clean. If offered $6000 to pop a few pills over a one month period with no tested / proven long-term effects, would you do it?