Posted on 12/19/2014 10:41:24 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Isn’t there supposed to be a separation of cult and state?
Mindfulness is a New Age kind of meditation that focuses on the present moment “non-judgmentally,” tracing its origins to Buddhism. The growing phenomenon was the subject of a 60 Minutes segment on Sunday, for which May and other fans of the practice were interviewed.
The segment featured Rep. Tim Ryan (D., Ohio), a so-called “rock star among mindfulness evangelists” who earmarked nearly $1 million to teach mindfulness to preschool students in his district. The $982,000 project provided deep breathing exercises, and “Peace Corners” for kids in Youngstown, Ohio.
I’m sure that’s what kids in Youngstown needs most. And the ACLU was nowhere in sight when Ryan decided to propagandize his creed to pre-schoolers, but if a conventionally religious politician tried to promote Christian or Jewish practices in school using a government grant, all hell would break loose.
Ryan said he practices mindfulness on the House Budget Committee and hosts weekly meditation sessions for members and staff. No Republicans attend.
Just wrap it into ObamaCare. Call it a mandatory health benefit.
The Washington Free Beacon analyzed 81 active studies on mindfulness that have cost taxpayers more than $100 million. Included in the total were all studies in which mindfulness is used as a central component in the research.
Mindfulness is proposed as the solution for a wide range of diseases and conditions for nearly every demographic.
A $42,676 study is using mindfulness to help women drink less during PMS, and another $1,399,153 grant attempts to use the technique to combat “menstrually related mood disorders.”
A $729,352 project is testing the technique as a coping skill to reduce stress for gay men. Obese people can also mindfully meditate to a healthy weight, according to the hypothesis of several NIH grants.
Meanwhile an Ebola vaccine sat on the shelf for lack of funds. If only it had been an Ebola vaccine of mindfullness.
This sort of thing is the problem throughout all of government. It is not that they have no money. It is that they are misspending it.
RE: This sort of thing is the problem throughout all of government. It is not that they have no money. It is that they are misspending it.
.... And they keep telling us they need more or else they can’t function.
“Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” — RONALD REAGAN
Absolutely correct. We need zero based budgeting and make every federal entity justify every single dollar every year. Pipe dreams. Congress will never relinquish their patronage and pork projects to something as mundane as an $18 trillion dollar debt.
Government waste has been going on since cavemen decided to appoint the first Grand Poo Bah.
A link to this thread has been posted on the Ebola Surveillance Thread
Cut (really cut, not trim the increase) their budget by 10% per year for a decade or two and this sort of crap will go out the window, or it will be all they do.
Actually, Ebola vaccines have been researched for at least a decade. There are several problems with researching Ebola vaccines or drugs.
First, is that there is no profit potential for Ebola treatments or vaccines. Until the current outbreak (which grew because of inadequate public health measures), there have never been enough patients to even test on, let alone make a profit on. So a few government labs could work on vaccines and drugs, but the development could only go so far.
Even if pharmaceutical companies could be persuaded to take on producing these drugs and vaccines (by an infusion of government money), testing the drugs and vaccines in phase 3 trials—the stage where it is determined they actually work—is almost impossible. Just because a drug works in animals does not mean it will work in humans, or have the same effect. And testing in humans is problematic. You cannot intentionally infect someone with Ebola to see if a drug or vaccine works. Furthermore, when testing the drug or vaccine, a control group has to receive the standard of care plus placebo; only in this outbreak have there been a sufficient number of patients to even set up such a randomized trial, and most patients do not receive a standard of care to compare against. There are also ethical problems with giving one group a treatment the other group does not receive, when the death rate is so high.
All the money in the world cannot compensate for the real scientific, economic, and ethical issues hindering the R&D of an Ebola vaccine or drug.
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