As the country plunges further into debt and with the small task of securing a multi-trillion dollar deal still on the cards, it has emerged that thousands of tax dollars were wasted on a study examining the correlation between a gay man's penis size and his sex life.If it doesn't involve military "waste" they need not bother. Obama just isn't interested.
The study was among several backed by the National Institutes of Health who granted almost $900,000 in one year on this and other studies.
The institute has come under scrutiny from a group claiming the agency is wasting valuable tax dollars at a time when the country is trying to control its debt.
The Traditional Values Coalition drew attention to the report as part of a six-month investigation into NIH grants for examples of 'institutional waste'.
It has not been ascertained how much of the $900,000 grant went to he 2009 report, called The Association Between Penis Size and Sexual Health Among Men Who Have Sex with Men, but the coalition release stated that at least $9.4 million went to a ten-year study that included the penis-size research.
According to Fox, the grant was administered by NIH's National Institute on Drug Abuse, and went first to a group called Public Health Solutions and a researcher with the National Development and Research Institutes before going to individual researchers.
It compiled data from a survey of more than one thousand gay and bisexual men at events in New York city held for the gay community.
Those who participated were given a free movie voucher.
President of the Traditional Values Coaltion Andrea Lafferty said: 'This country is broke and we cannot spend money on this kind of stuff.
'We’ve got nameless, faceless bureaucrats who thought this was a good use of taxpayer money.
'But, at the end of the day, it was the NIH directors who signed off on it. These nameless, faceless bureaucrats seem to think the American taxpayers are a limitless ATM machine.
'We're spending money on wacky stuff. The president has said he's going to hunt down waste. Well, I'm going to give it to him on a platter.'
The study abstract, authored in June 2010, is here. A snippet:
Further, size played a significant role in sexual positioning and psychosocial adjustment. These data highlight the need to better understand the real individual-level consequences of living in a penis-centered society.Good grief.
As a tea partier, a guy wholly opposed to most of what the federal government does -- and yet, I'm still a gay guy -- you are right -- this is a mind numbing waste of money. If there's one thing neither this country or its gay men don't need, is a study like this. The only size that matters is the size of the government and the size of the tax bill -- and both are way too big. And it's not healthy for our nation as a whole.
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