Are human drug experiments safe?

[Ginsan]

I don't mean the kind where you go into your garage, burn/cook/mix a bunch of stuff and then see what happens if you swallow it. I mean the kind that is done by professionals who say that they are trying to cure a certain illness. My arguments for why it is safe: - The costs of hurting people or making them sick are huge. Even if 5% of the people have bad side effects, stories will surely spread, right? If 5% of the people get bad long term side effects, almost everybody would know a person who knows a person who got bad long term side effects. And if this happens, nobody would become a test subject. - These people are doctors... I think doctors are among the people who have the greatest respect for human life and well-being and are among the least likely people to make people sick for the sake of making a new drug. - They are actually trying to discover new drugs. If it makes people sick they will not be put on the market anyway. Counterarguments: - Many drugs have bad side effects. But sometimes the side effects are less bad than the illness, so it works if you're ill. Thus it may still have bad side effects on healthy people - Yes these people are doctors. But making sick a small amount of people to cure or at least help a much larger amount of people is a rational thing to do. - At least some of the research is funded by drug companies, who are just in it for the money. It may be that a relatively small amount of doctors and scientists don't really care about making people sick, or who care little enough that they are willing to make a small percentage of people sick in order to make good money. So the research is aimed at making money, but is pretending to try and cure people. I am curious about what you have to say. PS: I really really would want it to be safe, because working at a job really really sucks and I need money, and by becoming a guinea pig I can get 3-4k euro's within 2-3 weeks. *though you can only do this once every 3 months* That's why I am proud of myself for having tried to treat both sides equally.