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Prediction markets Kalshi and Polymarket have long garnered a reputation for allowing users to make all kinds of ethically dubious bets, from the outcomes of deadly conflicts to raging wildfires.
And as the New York Times reports, Kalshi will even allow users to bet on whether clinical trials for potentially lifesaving drug trials will succeed.
But to researchers, it’s yet another morally bankrupt concept that could put real people in danger. There’s even risk that those enrolled in these trials could choose to drop out if the market were to bet against a positive outcome.
“Turning loose a betting market in an ongoing randomized clinical trial really is a breach of scientific conduct,” Robert Califf, who served as FDA commissioner in the Biden administration, told the NYT.
Kalshi first announced its “biotech prediction markets pilot program” last month, the same day president Donald Trump’s teleprompter guy was busted for winning more than $100,000 on Kalshi by betting on what he would say.
The company argued in the announcement that a “publicly listed contract on a trial or regulatory outcome produces a continuously updated, public probability that reflects the weight of the evidence rather than the preferred messaging of the trial sponsor.”
In a statement to the NYT, spokesperson Jack Such argued that these bets wouldn’t undermine research integrity, but instead cut through the hype surrounding biotech companies and the drugs they’re working on.
But those enrolled in drug trials were left appalled by the news.
“We’re literally trying to stay alive,” metastatic pancreatic cancer patient Walter Ingaharro Jr. told the NYT. “It’s not a game. The introduction of gambling into the process really creates an ethical mess.”
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