Selling Our Bodies

LAST WEEK, I found myself aimlessly strolling through the Square, thinking about how nice it would be to actually have a job for the summer. I was contemplating doing something physical, attracted by the concept of straining my muscles and sweating in the hot sun to earn my wage.

It was just as I was pondering that idea that I passed Herrell's--and made an amazing discovery.

It was then, standing in front of a bulletin board on Dunster St., that I realized that none of that painful labor would be necessary. Posted on a sheet of light blue paper was the answer to my summer job woes.

"EARN UP TO $1,000 IN 2 WEEKS" read the sign. I stopped in my tracks, nearly insane with the joyous anticipation that all of my problems would be solved.

My heartbeat quickened as I focused more directly on that beckoning blue poster and read on: "Healthy males (ages 18-30) needed for a study of the effects of light on hormonal patterns." I'm a healthy male, I thought excitedly to myself. And, as far as I can tell, I have hormonal patterns. I read further.

"The study is being conducted by the Center for Circadian Medicine at the Brigham and Women's Hospital. Participation involves a week of home monitoring, then living in our lab, free from time cues, for up to 15 days (and nights). We monitor your temperature, EEG and hormone patterns. Those completing the study will earn $700 to $1,000. If interested call Amy at 732-4311."

Could I really use this experiment to rake in a bundle of dough this summer? And without working? I was beginning to think so.

AT LAST, here was that elusive something that rarely comes along--a break.

Ecstatic, I tore down the poster so as to limit my competition for this once-in-a-lifetime shot. Surely scores of other healthy males in the Harvard Square area were, at this very moment, burning the Cambridge telephone lines with calls to this Amy person.

So I turned around, jogged to The Crimson, and called to get my name in the pile of responses which I imagined to be growing at that very instant.

Unfortunately, I only reached an answering machine. But that wasn't about to stop me. I was getting ready to catch a ride down to the hospital to get right in on the action. As I put down the receiver, my mind began to race with thoughts of other experiments and other $1000 paychecks.

They had me, hook, line, and sinker.

But something in the back of my mind was nagging me. Sure, this was "scientific" research--but the subject of it would be none other than myself. If anything, I thought I should at least check it out with my parents.

"ABSOLUTELY NOT!" screamed my mother into the phone. "Philip, you had better not do this."

After endless rounds of, "I won't mom, I won't," I decided to try my father. But he too put his foot down in that authoritative way that only parents can.

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.