I agreed to get malaria for money but almost died as a result

Words by John Tothill

How much money would you have to be paid to get malaria?

In the right setting, I would do basically anything for two and a half beers so, a couple of years ago, I was more than happy to get malaria on a paid clinical trial for a bargain price of £2,000 ($2,575).

When I was 25, I was living in London and trying to be a stand-up comedian. I say ‘trying’: I guess in some ways I was a stand-up comedian because I was, you know, doing stand-up. But I was earning absolutely no money from it. In fact, because of all the train tickets and the fuel money, I was in fact losing money on stand-up comedy, which isn’t a great career strategy.

John Tothill agreed to do the trial to fund a comedy appearance. (John Tothill/Supplied)

At first, I funded my passion by doing the usual day jobs. For a while, I worked in a school. I also worked in a coffee factory and I did some copywriting, too.

But I soon needed to raise more money because, in the UK, the best way to get noticed as a comedian is to go to the Edinburgh Fringe, which is a month-long arts festival in Scotland. It’s a madly expensive month, costing performers as much as £10,000 ($12,880) to go – and there’s no guarantee you’ll ever make that back.

I really wanted to do the Fringe, but I’m hopeless at saving money. I actually think that, if I won the lottery, I would squander it all on the way to cashing the check at the bank, just from buying little treats for my walk there.

So, as part of the effort to raise the money, I thought I’d sign up for a paid medical trial. It sounded like the kind of thing bored students and out-of-work artists did, and at various points in my life I had been both. What could possibly go wrong?

The answer to that question is you could get a malaria infection that causes you to hallucinate.

The scientists running the trial were very nice and really upfront about the risks. “Not all types of malaria kill,” the doctor told me. “But the one we’re giving you does.”

Malaria is spread by some types of mosquitoes. (Getty Stock Photo)

After the malaria was injected into my blood, I was under strict instructions to phone them multiple times a day and report to them all the feelings and symptoms I’d experienced in the last few hours.

For the most part, it was like being in a long-distance relationship and, at first, I was feeling absolutely fine.

Occasionally, they gave me a blood test. They were waiting for my parasite count to reach 500. This measured how many malaria bugs were in my blood per milliliter. Once I’d gotten to 500, they would give me some pills and send me on my way.

Weirdly, my malaria count stayed at zero. “We think the malaria is hiding in your liver,” the doctors told me. After the Hereculian trials I had put my liver through as a student, I was actually quite touched to find out the parasites still wanted to hang out there, because I for one wouldn’t have chosen to.

Then suddenly, after about two weeks, I started to feel really sick. And I mean really sick. At one point I was having these strange feverish nightmares about being dragged into hell by the devil, as my temperature went up and up and up.

John's medication didn't alleviate his symptoms. (John Tothill/Supplied)

The doctors tested my blood again, and my count had gone well into the thousands.

The scientists on the trial were slightly excited about it, and fair enough, I thought. They assured me I was going to be okay, and handed me the pills and told me to phone them every day.

But the pills didn’t work, and I got sicker. That was when the doctors started to get concerned.

“We need to observe you taking these pills,” one of the doctors told me. “These pills always work. If something’s going wrong here, it’s serious.”

I wanted to be a good patient, so I showed him how I was taking the medication. Immediately, he looked incredibly relieved and then slightly irritated.

“Well, I can see why they’re not working,” he told me. “You’re washing the medication down with Diet Coke. It’s stopping it from being effective.”

It turns out the Diet Coke was too acidic; it was denaturing the pills and destroying their medical properties.

I think he expected me to be a bit embarrassed, but I wasn’t sure what he was getting at. Was I supposed to be drinking water? That bland, colorless liquid that animals drink from troughs? Surely not. I’d rather die.

Doctors simply encouraged John to drink water with his medication. (Getty Stock Photo)

In the end, we compromised on letting me drink chocolate milk. To this day, I swear that I owe my life to Nesquik.

After that moment, my recovery was, frankly, humiliatingly quick.

Malaria medication works unbelievably fast. After four days of fever, I was back on the streets again, ready for a big night out.

And what a night out I had, toasting my recovery and, frankly, my immortality. The next day I woke up with a terrible hangover. My head was pounding, and I was surrounded by empty McDonald’s wrappers and a thousand Lost Mary vapes.

“Oh god,” I thought, “is this the malaria coming back?” It was not. Thank god.

I would actually recommend clinical trials to anybody. There were times when it was scary, but the doctors were absolutely amazing.

The other thing I’d recommend is that you buy a ticket to my standup show, 'Thank God This Lasts Forever', at the Edinburgh Fringe this August, because, for the first time ever, I managed to save the money! It has paid for essential marketing and accommodation costs.

Hilariously, the show is still actually in the red financially, but that’s the Edinburgh Fringe for you. Once it’s all over, maybe I’ll do an even more extreme trial…