I reported a year ago I had been accepted to participate in the ACT1VE clinical trial of a replacement C peptide hormone as a potential treatment for peripheral diabetic neuropathy. Every Monday morning for a year I injected myself with 0.3 ml of drug. Since I do not have any symptoms or pain from diabetic neuropathy, I still have no idea whether or not I got the drug or placebo. But I finished the trial a couple of weeks ago and will find out once all the data has been tabulated. There were many positive aspects to participating in this trial. All my lab work was done at no charge by the study, I got some fairly extensive nerve studies done, and I met some really nice, dedicated people. The $595 compensation will help pay for a nice bike computer or some ski boot warmers for the upcoming ski season.
Fresh off this first successful venture into volunteering I am now looking at the PERL study currently being done at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston and around the country. www.perl-study.org I went into Boston last week for a screening visit to collect blood and urine. The inclusion criteria is pretty stringent and requires participants to have some measurable early renal loss as evidenced by microalbumin and creatinine ratio. Mine has never been measurable so chances are I will not be eligible for the trial. But I figured it wouldn't hurt to at least go for the screening. I left the Joslin with some parting gifts. A red squeeze kidney and a lovely pen with PERL logo. My thought on looking at all this swag is wouldn't the money be better spent on research ? Or maybe more participant compensation ? While I think it is a really cool logo - a kidney inside an oyster shell (get it PERL :) ) I can't help but wonder how much that cool logo cost to design and print on letterheads, business cards, kidney squeeze balls and pens. 
Marketing 101
Wow, I love the swag. Now, if it were really some swag it would include tickets to eh ballet or something really nice.
Clare, thank you for participating in research. We only way to move forward, and that is to support research. It is important that we do trials no matter the out come. I think you on behalf of my children and grandchildren.