Free Republic

The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), a division of the National Institutes of Health, is giving Dr. Lynn Fiellin, an assistant professor at the Yale School of Medicine, $3.9 million over five years to develop a video game to teach “sex, drug and alcohol negotiation and refusal skills" to children 9-14 years of age. The game will feature “virtual characters or avatars” that are guided by the children playing the game to make decisions about whether to engage in behaviors that put them at risk of being infected with HIV. The game’s effectiveness...

Study Will Examine Genes, Environment Several federal agencies have teamed up to launch one of the most ambitious biomedical projects in history -- a massive study to identify the biggest threats to children's health. The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Environmental Protection Agency are working together to plan the project, the National Children's Study. The study would examine a vast array of factors that may affect physical, mental, emotional and developmental health by following more than 100,000 children across the country...

<p>The National Institutes of Health continues to fund sex studies despite protests from members of Congress who say projects such as paying women to watch pornography take taxpayer dollars away from potentially lifesaving research.</p> <p>The critics' latest target of outrage: $26,000 in federal funds for a conference on sexual arousal next month at the Kinsey Institute in Bloomington, Ind.</p>