In my research we sometimes get people drunk in the laboratory. The ethics board requires us to get a pregnancy test for all women before giving them alcohol, no matter how convincing their belief that they could not be pregnant.
For a while I thought that this was needless interference, but it turns out not everyone can be trusted to know these things. For instance, a woman may be so embarrassed that she recently had sex with her hated ex-boyfriend in a moment of weakness that she "forgets" about it when telling the assistant that she hasn't had sex in the last year. And in a college population, being a self-identified lesbian doesn't seem to preclude having unprotected sex with men on occasion. So we just use the pregnancy tests on everyone.
In my research we sometimes get people drunk in the laboratory.
Soooo, Rick, where do you work again?
Do you pay these people to get drunk?
I've used "If I were, people would start building altars pretty soon" when a doctor just would not believe me that there was no chance I could be pregnant. And this was after I'd already answered "no" to the "Are you sexually active?" question.
Once again, the lying few make it uncomfortable for the honest rest of us. Dang it.
Do you pay these people to get drunk?
Sure. $8 an hour. But they have to do lots of tedious stuff while getting drunk, and worse, lots of tedious stuff while sobering-up. It's one of those things that seems like a great idea until you have been through it once.
There's a test I have to do once per year that involves a small amount of radioactive iodine. They make me take a pregnancy test before I can take the pill. Even when I had been celibate for a very long time. They just don't trust patients to tell the truth and they don't want to be sued later.
but it turns out not everyone can be trusted to know these things
And people also can't be trusted not to lie.
So we just use the pregnancy tests on everyone.
This is what they do in the HIV vaccine study I'm participating in also. With they other 2 studies I've done they ALSO asked about your between visit sexual activity, and associated birth control. Which would often prompt me to ask the study nurses, "Well, do you know anybody nice you can introduce me to?"
But they have to do lots of tedious stuff while getting drunk, and worse, lots of tedious stuff while sobering-up.
I've had evenings like that without getting paid.
