RSS Feed MenuResearch programs that could benefit the health of Americans were denied funding by the National Institutes of Health in favor of politically-correct scientifically dubious projects, including “The Impact of Dragon Boat Racing on Cancer Survivorship” and “The Healing of the Canoe.”
“Given the number of urgent public health issues facing the NIH, such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and pandemic disease, we question how peer review panels determined these projects to have ‘high scientific caliber’ and how they are particularly relevant to the NIH Institute and Center research priorities,” wrote Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) and Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR), in a letter to Dr. Francis S. Collins, director of the NIH, which was obtained by NewMajority.
This year the NIH received over $40 billion from taxpayers, including $10 billion from the 2009 stimulus package, from which it provided grants for:
- “Impact of Dragon Boat Racing on Cancer Survivorship,” which examines whether dragon boat paddling will enhance the lives of cancer survivors more than just walking.
- “Substance Use and HIV Risk Among Thai Women,” which studies the use of drugs among male-to-female transgendered sex workers in Bangkok.
- “The Healing of the Canoe,” which investigates the need for an “increased cultural and community identity” among the Suquamish Tribe.
- “Patterns of Drug Use and Abuse in Brazilian Rave Culture,” which scrutinizes the use of drugs in clubs located in the south of Brazil.
After pointing out the egregious grants that the NIH has approved, the two ranking members demanded an explanation as to how each grant met the criteria for the NIH’s funding priorities within four weeks.
What puzzles ranking members Barton and Walden is the fact that the NIH claims to have enhanced its peer review process to require that grants each address an “important problem”. Yet stimulus funding that could have otherwise gone towards research that saves lives has instead been used so that researchers can hang out with drug-users at raves in São Paulo. It appears that, despite supposedly stricter standards, the NIH doesn’t see it fit to excuse itself from the trough.
ghiles // Sep 23, 2009 at 9:17 pm
The outrage at the NIH providing funding for the research projects you have listed seems somewhat misplaced. You talk about money that could have been provided to other more pressing matters of health research, but fail to mention any specific projects that were denied funding over the ones listed. How much federal funding was provided to those four projects listed? And how does that compare with the total NIH budget? And then how much of that NIH budget is devoted to subjects such as those you mention? (i.e. diabetes, cancer, heart disease) Maybe drug use among Thai transsexual prostitutes or Brazilian ravers makes Republican legislators squeamish, but the transmission of HIV among sex workers and drug users is a serious problem at least deserving of some attention (especially when they transmit HIV to other people who are not drug users or sex workers.) I would agree that there are other public health problems of more important public concern, but I would guess that much, much more of the NIH’s budget goes to those areas instead. Is this just another case of “volcano monitoring”?
rbottoms // Sep 24, 2009 at 4:16 am
Maybe drug use among Thai transsexual prostitutes or Brazilian ravers makes Republican legislators squeamish, but the transmission of HIV among sex workers and drug users is a serious problem at least deserving of some attention
Typical GOP tactics.
Vilify research into a funny sounding group, transvestite prostitutes for instance, for short term political gain at the expense of maybe finding ways to reduce AIDS infections. This is the kind of crap Mr. Frum says he’s against, but I guess only in theory.
After all there are elections to be won. Who cares if a huge percentage of whores on the streets are transvestites, it makes the simpletons angry and that’s what we really want.
No really goes to raves or uses drugs and gets infected during stoned out behavior. Better to yuk it up for the next fund raising letter.
God forbid anyone does serious research into whether handing out condoms to teens might keep them from dying (and for taxpayers footing the bill). Masturbation is taboo to talk about despite the fact that doing it risks zero infection and maybe in a sane world we might encourage teems to beat off instead of catching AIDS.
Stupid. Shortsighted.
In other words, the modern GOP.
sinz54 // Sep 24, 2009 at 10:30 am
I’m not offended by these particular projects. They’re looking at issues of drug use and HIV transmission among specific populations. And the NIH’s critics are ignoring the vast amount of world-class research that the NIH has funded. The NIH is one government agency that has earned its keep, many times over.
What I am offended about is overt quackery.
The liberal Dem senator, Tom Harkin, forced the NIH to open an “National Center of Complementary and Alternative Medicine,” which is basically tasked with doing research on quack medicine. He did that because he claims that his own allergies were “cured” by the quack remedy, bee pollen–and he wanted the NIH to look into the matter.
This agency now funds “research” into homeopathy, Reiki, and other total quackery. Unlike the rest of the NIH, which may fund an occasional bad project, the entire NCCAM is quackery funded by our tax dollars.
Scientists have been sharply critical of NCCAM and have long urged it should be shut down.
Whenever anyone accuses Republicans of being anti-science, I always remind them about NCCAM and its origins.
NIH Defends Funds for Ravers // Sep 24, 2009 at 5:02 pm
[...] National Institutes of Health pushed back at a NewMajority exclusive report, that revealed legitimate research programs were denied funding in favor of politically correct, [...]
fert // Sep 26, 2009 at 4:40 am
I have three major problems with this article:
1. The Healing of the Canoe – funding alcohol intervention programs such as this is well within the National Institute on Drug Addiction’s mission statement. It seems to me that this article, with it’s claim that this program is just for “community identity,” is misleading to the point of outright lying about the true nature of this program. Volcano monitoring, indeed.
2. Right, so congressmen and journalists know better than scientists familiar with the field on what’s important to research. Grants have always received scrutiny by a cadre of scientific peers that are apparently is stricter than journalistic editorial boards and congressional aides.
3. Of the four grants singled out by Congressmen Barton and Walden:
– two are R03’s: which is funding for pilot studies, self-contained research projects, development of new research technology, etc.
– one is an R21: which encourages new, exploratory and developmental research projects by providing support for the early stages of project development
– and the Canoe project is R24, to provide resources for problems where multiple expertise is needed to focus on a single complex problem in biomedical research or to enhance research infrastructure… you know, like alcohol abuse.
Not only are these grants well within the realm of scientific reason and we won’t go into why they’re intellectually worthy of funding, these grants are not the large, bread and butter grants needed to fund a laboratory (those are the R01’s). They’re for the most part experimental grants to see if the research is worthy of future funding. The NIH cannot possibly know which research is going to pan out.
As far as I can tell, Barton and Walden are either clueless or trying to build a strawman. And the way this article is written, it’s apparent that NM has a long way to go to getting rid of the know-nothing-populist journalism that it was created to be against.
fert // Sep 26, 2009 at 4:58 am
Sinz, could you please provide a citation for your statement “Scientists have been sharply critical of NCCAM and have long urged it should be shut down.”
Though it’s hard to prove a negative, isn’t it worth researching and possibly proving that these alternative medicines and treatments are worthless? And to do so, there needs to be scientific rigor. Scientific rigor that the NIH demands. Since all these herbal alternatives and crap aren’t regulated by the FDA, there are a lot of people out there getting hurt by bad products and drug interactions. So this kind of research could directly effect public health. Why wouldn’t that be worth funding?