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One thing that got me thinking after class was the idea that it is unethical for clinical studies, that require a certain degree of risk from their participants, to not pay those participants. While I personally believe that clinical studies should pay their participants, in order to compensate them for both their time and the risk that they are undertaking, I do not believe that it is unethical if participants are not paid. Before any participant can enroll in a study, they need to give their informed consent in order for the study to perform any required experiments on them and to use the data that is obtained from them. Such consents must describe the exact role of the participant, or else it would not be considered an informed consent, and therefore would be invalid. After signing such a consent, it is safe to assume that each participant knows exactly what is required of them, and they are willingly volunteering their time, and bodies, to this study. I have a hard time seeing how this is fundamentally any different from any other type of volunteer activity. While many volunteer activities do not have any risk associated with them, there are others that do, many of which require the volunteer to sign a release before they begin. In such cases, the volunteer is making the conscious decision to take that risk. Obviously there is a difference from volunteering your time, and participating in a research study, but I think that in the greater picture, they are both volunteers that have knowingly decided to participate. While payment may help get more individuals to decide to participate, which is a whole other issue, I do not feel that participants must be compensated. Instead, they are volunteering their time in order to aid in the pursuit of knowledge, and are knowingly and willingly undertaking any and all risk.