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Just Say No, Kids

In which people complain about something they volunteered themselves for

There’s been an awful lot in the news lately about the drug trial whose guinea-pigs are dangerously ill.* My own abnormal reaction is: they volunteered for this. They may well have come out of trials before with no problems, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be as lucky on the next trial they take. The chance of something like this happening is miniscule, but it’s still there.

Am I being too callous? It is, of course, still a horrible thing to happen to someone, and to their relatives. One of their relatives, a BBC producer called Myfanwy Marshall, has been on the news constantly since it happened, telling us all how horrible it is that her boyfriend is dangerously ill, and has lost his good looks. On an interview last night, she said how shocked she was that he suddenly looks middle-aged – “forty-five”, she said. I know people don’t always say what they mean when they’re under stress, but it certainly seemed to show a lot about her priorities in life.

* Well, three-quarters of them – the others were on the placebo.