Posted on 05/22/2015 12:45:28 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
The National Institutes of Health is using hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on grants to study the best ways to get gay people to quit smoking and abusing drugs and alcohol.
The University of Illinois at Chicago has spent over $435,000 since 2010 to carry out a “culturally targeted and individually tailored smoking cessation study” for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) smokers, according to the grant information published by the NIH.
Additionally, NIH gave the University of Pittsburgh $43,120 to study tobacco and alcohol use trajectories in “sexual-minority emerging adults” and has awarded over $178,000 to Columbia University to research substance abuse disparities in sexual minority youths.
Taxpayer watchdogs say the agency’s focused grants contradict liberal talking points on equality by using federal money to push a special interest agenda rather than spending it to research general health concerns.
“The assumption that LGBTs are somehow biologically or psychologically different contradicts everything the left tells us, and it makes absolutely no sense to create programs around these interest groups,” said Rick Manning, president of Americans for Limited Government. “This has the appearance of special interest pandering rather than real public health concerns.”
For using tax dollars to fund special interest grants instead of studies that address national health concerns, the NIH wins the Golden Hammer, a weekly distinction awarded by The Washington Times highlighting examples of wasteful or questionable federal spending.
According to NIH, recent data indicates that gay people experience “substantial health disparities,” including significantly higher rates of substance abuse and related health consequences like HIV compared to their heterosexual peers.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Thanks for the ping!
Substance abuse happens more often then you would like to realize among homosexual individuals. Same harmful effects, sure, but the NIH is simply complaining that a disproportionate number of smokers are homosexual. Which IMHO, is a matter of Doctor Obvious, given what I have seen among the homosexual individuals which I know.
The grant junkies get extra credit for advancing an agenda that is politically correct.
More publicity, and more future federal research grants.
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