You may read claims that the National Institutes of Health doesn’t have enough federal money to be able to deal with the Ebola virus, whether or not it becomes a threat in this country beyond now.
The Daily Mail reports on why you should be skeptical (or as the Brits would spell it, sceptical) about those claims:
The $30 billion U.S. National Institutes of Health blamed tightening federal budgets on Monday for its inability to produce an Ebola vaccine, but a review of its grant-making history in the last 10 years has turned up highly unusual research that redirected precious funds away from more conventional public health projects.
The projects included $2.4 million to develop ‘origami’ condoms designed with Japanese folding paper in mind, and $939,000 to find out that male fruit flies prefer to romance younger females because the girl-flies’ hormone levels drop over time.
Other winners of NIH grants consumed $325,000 to learn that marriages are happier when wives calm down more quickly during arguments with their husbands, and $257,000 to make an online game as a companion to first lady Michelle Obama’s White House garden.
The agency also spent $117,000 in taxpayers’ grant dollars to discover that most chimpanzees are right-handed.
The same group of scientists determined, at a cost of $592,000 for NIH, that chimps with the best poop-throwing skills are also the best communicators. But while flinging feces might get another primate’s attention in the wild, they discovered, it’s not much good in captivity. …
Dr. Francis Collins, the head doc at NIH, complained bitterly on Sunday that budget ‘cuts’ were to blame for his agency’s failure to produce a vaccine in time to fend off this year’s Ebola virus epidemic.
Collins blamed a ’10-year slide in research support’ in a Huffington Post interview.
But overall NIH funding sits at $30.15 billion this year – up from $17.84 billion in 2000.
NIAID has seen its budget grow by 220 per cent over the same stretch of years.
It took a different NIH department to see the value in giving a University of Missouri team $548,000 to find out if 30-something partiers feel immature after they binge drink while people in their mid-20s don’t.
‘We interpreted our findings to suggest that, at 25, drinking is more culturally acceptable,’ declared a doctoral student who coordinated the government-funded field work.
A generous $610,000 paid for a 120-nation survey to determine how satisfied people in different countries are with their lives.
A staggering $1.1 million funded research into how athletes perceive their in-game surroundings, including one Purdue University study that discovered golfers can putt 10 per cent better if they imagine the hole is bigger.
And $832,000 went to learn if it was possible to get uncircumcised South African tribesmen into the habit of washing their genitals after having sex.
The Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan group that advises federal lawmakers, reported in 2011 that NIH’s funding ‘has grown significantly over the past 15 years,’ including a $10 billion increase solely from President Obama’s 2009 economic stimulus plan.
‘In 2010, over half of all nondefense discretionary spending for health research and development went to NIH,’ CBO noted.
The agency recommended a drastic cut in NIH’s funding, citing a 2009 Government Accountability Office report that ‘found gaps in NIH’s ability’ to keep tabs on what happened to its outgoing grant money.
‘Some costs could probably be reduced or eliminated,’ the CBO concluded, ‘without harming high-priority research.’
One of those candidates might be a $484,000 study to determine if hypnosis can reduce hot flashes in postmenopausal women. If that doesn’t work, NIH also spent $294,000 to try yoga.
This laundry list demonstrates why claims that the government doesn’t have enough money for whatever the bureaucrats or their politicians are requesting …
… should be disbelieved until proven.
It’s not just about spending that should be outrageous to anyone. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal wrote for Politico about the Centers for Disease Control:
In a paid speech last week, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attempted to link spending restraints enacted by Congress—and signed into law by President Obama—to the fight against Ebola. Secretary Clinton claimed that the spending reductions mandated under sequestration “are really beginning to hurt,” citing the fight against Ebola: “The CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] is another example on the response to Ebola—they’re working heroically, but they don’t have the resources they used to have.”
Her argument, like those made by others, misses the point. In recent years, the CDC has received significant amounts of funding. Unfortunately, however, many of those funds have been diverted away from programs that can fight infectious diseases, and toward programs far afield from the CDC’s original purpose.
Consider the Prevention and Public Health Fund, a new series of annual mandatory appropriations created by Obamacare. Over the past five years, the CDC has received just under $3 billion in transfers from the fund. Yet only 6 percent—$180 million—of that $3 billion went toward building epidemiology and laboratory capacity. Especially given the agency’s postwar roots as the Communicable Disease Center, one would think that “detecting and responding to infectious diseases and other public health threats” warrants a larger funding commitment.
Instead, the Obama administration has focused the CDC on other priorities. While protecting Americans from infectious diseases received only $180 million from the Prevention Fund, the community transformation grant program received nearly three times as much money—$517.3 million over the same five-year period.
The CDC’s website makes clear the objectives of community transformation grants. The program funds neighborhood interventions like “increasing access to healthy foods by supporting local farmers and developing neighborhood grocery stores,” or “promoting improvements in sidewalks and street lighting to make it safe and easy for people to walk and ride bikes.” Bike lanes and farmer’s markets may indeed help a community—but they would do little to combat dangerous diseases like Ebola, SARS or anthrax. …
But, as the old saying goes, to govern is to choose. Unfortunately, this administration seems intent on not choosing, instead trying to insinuate Washington into every nook and cranny of our lives. It’s a misguided and dangerous gambit, for two reasons. First, a federal government with nearly $18 trillion in debt has no business spending money on non-essential priorities. Second, a government that attempts to do too much will likely excel at little. And the federal government has one duty above all: To protect the health, safety and well-being of its citizens. …
In her speech, Secretary Clinton said, “too often our health care debates are clouded by ideology, rather than illuminated by data.” I couldn’t agree more. But in this case, the data show not that the CDC faced a lack of funding, but misplaced priorities for that funding based on choices made by the Obama administration.
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 