A Poke in the Eye For Five Bucks?

By Amanda Bower, Val Castronovo, Ling Minhua, Ellin Martens, Julie Rawe, Sora Song, Joel Stein and Josh Tyrangiel

Apparently they can pay you enough. It seems some people will do anything, even be human guinea pigs, if the price is right. Consider the following clinical trials, all submitted to by consenting adults:

Last week it was reported that aerospace giant Lockheed Martin is sponsoring a study that pays volunteers $1,000 apiece to ingest perchlorate--a pollutant found in rocket fuel--every day for six months.

Currently recruiting A government pain-measurement study will pay $100 every time participants let a machine squeeze their thumbnail until they cry "Uncle!"

1999 Sixty volunteers pocketed $460 each for taking daily capsules of a pesticide known to disrupt the nervous system.

1998 For $800 each, 276 people submitted to psychological exams and then had cold viruses piped into their nose.

1997 Sixty participants took home some $300 apiece for drinking a Dixie cup's worth of E. coli as part of a three-day diarrhea study.