A man drank a dysentery-laced smoothie for a clinical trial — here are 2 other people who did shocking things for science in 2022

Hilary BrueckDec 22, 2022, 05:04 IST

Courtesy: Carolina Reid, Jake Eberts

Clinical trials are a critical part of how new vaccines, treatments, and drugs are developed.
This year, Insider interviewed patients who volunteered to get malaria and dysentery for clinical trials.

One volunteer drank a bacteria-filled smoothie knowing it could give him dysentery.

Another let hundreds of malaria-carrying mosquitoes bite her arm, not just once but on five separate occasions.

And — in a first-of-its kind attempt in the US — a man agreed to let a newly installed stent read his thoughts forever.

None of them regret the daring things they did for science in 2022.

These are the three of the wildest, most-out there contributions people made to scientific advancements through their participation in clinical trials this year — and why the patients all say they wouldn't hesitate to do something like this again.

Carolina Reid, a chef in Seattle, got bit by more than 600 mosquitoes for $4,200

Carolina Reid

Reid's study participation had to be cut short when she got malaria

Reid, getting blood drawn at one of her many clinic visits.Carolina Reid

26-year-old Jake Eberts willfully drank a bacteria-filled smoothie, and got 'brutally sick' because of it

@wokeglobaltimes

Ebert said he'd gladly do a trial like this one again, both for the $7,000 paycheck, and for the cause.

Left: The dorms where study participants stayed. Right: a bedpan like the ones that Eberts had to use every time he went to the bathroom, so that researchers could extract a sample from it, and analyze his illness.@wokeglobaltimes

Eberts even got a new job out of the experiment

Jake Eberts during his inpatient vaccine "challenge" trial at the University of Maryland.Courtesy of Jake Eberts

Finally, a man living near New York City was implanted with a piece of platinum that will read his thoughts

A photo of Philip O'Keefe, an Australian patient, who was one of the first in the world to be implanted with the brain-computer interface, called Stentrode.Paul Burston, The University of Melbourne

Brain-computer-interface devices may one day be used to diagnose diseases, or even prevent and treat issues like seizures.

Thomas Oxley, the CEO of BCI company Synchron, in front of a picture of the technology he developed, which is implanted in key blood vessels in the brain.Synchron

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A man drank a dysentery-laced smoothie for a clinical trial &mdash; here are 2 other people who did shocking things for science in 2022