Mart-deBlog

Currently I am in Zuidlaren at a pharmaceutical research institute, participating in the drugs trial of a potential new medicine for agitated intestines. Basically, I am a lab rat. They inject 230 mg of the chemical J-# in my cheek at exactly 9:00 and 21:00, and then they check blood pressure, hart rhythm, blood samples etc. I lie in a hospital bed and nurses wear their usual white, it's a pseudo clinical setting except that there are no diseased.

Some people have reacted fiercely against it. 'Why the hell would you do that?!' Often their point boils down to the idea that it is simply disrespectful to your body, selling it like a kind of prostitution, and remember: 'Health is the most important thing in life.' In March 2006, two men nearly died in a drugs trial ('Two drug trial men critically ill'), turning one man in an elephant man ('Drug trial creates Elephant Man'). I really feel no need to defend myself, I have nothing against prostitution and it is my body. Indeed, the only sole reason I am here is the money. I can see the point people have, it fits well in a society where people are sickly hygienic and afraid of all that is foreign. But I am neither one.

I can recommend it to anyone who wants to make easy money in a short time. I will receive a gross E1700,- for a mere 9 days in quarantine. That will roughly be enough for the nightlife in Berlin and some traveling. My neighbor has done it 8 times already, thus financing many great experiences (and never feeling any side-effect). To some people here it is also the idealistic reward of supporting medicinal progress and thus indirectly helping people in need. To me -personally- that feels like hypocrite self-rewarding (it's not the reason that brought me here).

It is also an interesting experience on itself. For one, there is the experience of the recluse. The solitary life runs deep in my veins, and here I can legitimately be a hermit. Everything is calm and there is no distraction besides the occasional needle in your arm. At home, while doing nothing I can never be at peace for long because of a nagging conscience, instilled by the workers mentality of 'normal people need to work for their life', but I strive to become a skilled philosopher and that needs the training of reading and thinking, 'doing nothing' in the eyes of normal society. Here I have a job in the background to silence that nagging voice of conscience. There is truly no hurry and life becomes gradual. There is a clear pattern, at 7:00 we wake up and at 24:00 we go to sleep, everything has its fixed time. The other lab rats are there in case you want to speak or play a game, but I don't have much need for it. No, I indulge in difficult books and slow movies for the time being.

And the alien chemical J-#? That just runs through my blood and supposedly influences the spasms of my intestine. As unnatural as that might be, my life here is more natural than ever.


For the interested, check: PRA International.