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 I think this is a really interesting and important topic. As science and medicine progress, there is a continuous need for human participants to test things on. It makes sense...to ensure the safety of the general population, products/medications need to be piloted in test groups. The issue of who becomes a member of the test groups, and why they become a member, is the interesting part of this issue. On the one hand, I think that compensation of research subjects clearly has upsides; it increases the number of people willing to participate and it seems fair to compensate people for their time/the use of their body...but, as we established in class, there may be downsides as well. Including the fact that people may be drawn to a particular study solely for the compensation offered. Is this a problem? I think Crystal is right when she says that people who are in need of money badly enough will find many avenues to provide them with income...and some of these avenues would certainly be more risky/unsafe than participating in controlled research. So, in this light, perhaps the presence of research in need of human subjects is a good thing because it provides a (relatively) safer place to go for money. I think what worries me is the fact that there are probably people who, unlike Crystal, are immediately dismissive of any potential harm that may come from participating in a study. The potential for these people to enlist in multiple trials at once/in a short time, which may lead to great harm is a real one. It is this possibility that makes me back off from taking the viewpoint that: "of course people should be compensated"...I can't help but have a lingering feeling that there is an inherent coercion associated with compensating people who participate in research. On the other hand, the idea of not compensating them seems wrong too...