The Exploitation of Drug Users

Abstract

Drug users have been exploited in research studies and clinical practice. We explore ways in which exploitation has occurred and strategies to help patients, research subjects and communities to prevent or avoid exploitation.

Keywords:

• exploitation
• clinical research ethics
• institutional review board

Declaration of Interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the article.

GLOSSARY

• Institutional Review Board (IRB): Based on US Food & Drug Administration regulations, a group of individuals usually institutionally-based, who are designated to review and monitor biomedical research involving human subjects.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Shirley Stallings

Shirley Stallings, B.E.S., M.A., US, is an independent researcher. With a broadly based American culture degree from the University of Minnesota and an American Studies degree from the University of Massachusetts, her primary research interest is American material culture. Past research and administrative activities have ranged from the restoration of a historic house to the director of historic site museums in Massachusetts, to the virtual worlds of software and computers. Publications and presentations have focused on the history of drug advertising, discovery of inhalation anesthesia in New England, nature and the meaning of gravestone art in New England, computer content search and retrieval, a software market taxonomy, vitamin supplements, and healthcare system exploitation.

Michael Montagne

Michael Montagne, Ph.D., US, is Professor of Social Pharmacy and Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences. Educated in pharmacy and sociology at the University of Minnesota, he then received postdoctoral training in psychiatric epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University. He has taught and performed research for 38 years on the social, cultural, and historical aspects of drug effects, drug use, and drug discovery, including drug advertising.