Get paid to avoid traveler's trots in Latin America

Pharmaceutical company Iomai is in Phase II of a study using a skin patch to help prevent diarrhea in travelers, and is offering students and others headed to language schools in Latin America up to $900 for participation. The patch is "needle-free technology" called transcutaneous immunization (TCI), and the object is to discover how well it delivers a vaccine which stimulates the body's immune response to an invasion of E-coli, a creepy bug which lives in fecal matter and developing countries' tap water. E-coli would be one of the culprits of those cramp-causing trots called ETEC (traveler's diarrhea) that can ruin a trip quicker than you can find the Immodium. The patch can be worn for short periods, a plus in hot countries.

1,406 U.S. student travelers took a similar vaccine or a placebo before leaving for Guatemala or Mexico as part of a Johns Hopkins study last year, and 84% of the students who "responded" to the vaccine (meaning their bodies liked it) found it effectively blocked severe diarrhea and the vaccine stopped 63% of mild cases. The substance used in that trial worked as an immune system stimulator, as does Iomai's patch; your body, should it decide to respond to the vaccine, will attack foreign germ forces storming internal gates and fight them off before they establish residence in your innards.

How to participate

Headed for a language school in Latin America and want to participate in the Iomai traveler's diarrhea study? Check out Iomai's TrekStudy.

Colleges creating study abroad financing through clinical trials

The San Antonio Express-News, which reported on the trial yesterday, also reports that paying for study abroad through clinical trials like this one is a brainchild of a consortium called CELDA (Consortium to Enhance Language Diversity Abroad), a mind-meeting of universities looking for creative study abroad financing solutions, particularly for Latino students. Iomai says that the company is not promoting trials as travel financing, but there's no doubt that $900 goes a long way in Mexico. And you may save yourself a few bucks on Immodium (plugging up isn't a good solution to traveler's trots, anyway) or 900 trips to the baño, too.

Related: Traveler's Diarrhea Vaccine Coming? | Beginner's Guide to Mexico Travel | About Drinking the Water in Mexico

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