They are known as human guinea pigs, lab rats, medical prostitutes and professional patients. From musicians to teachers, restaurant workers to housewives, the unemployed to the ex-con, clinical trial participants are appearing from all backgrounds, and in ever-increasing numbers. Control Group reveals the lives of professional guinea pigs, people who make it their part-time or full-time jobs to volunteer for paid clinical trials. Theirs is a little-noticed sub-culture silently emerging from the testing labs of our new pharmaceutical millennium.

Through vibrant, humorous, touching and often graphic stories, Control Group introduces viewers to a world where the lure of easy money has suddenly made guinea-pigging a career choice.

The film combines interviews with human test subjects and experts from Philadelphia, Austin and countries around the world and features guinea pig activist Robert Helms, author of Guinea Pig Zero: A Journal for Human Research Subjects.

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