NIH Defends Funds for Ravers
The National Institutes of Health pushed back at a NewMajority exclusive report, that revealed legitimate research programs were denied funding in favor of politically correct, scientifically dubious projects.
A spokesman for the NIH stood behind each of the four grants mentioned in the story, and a subject of protest by GOP Congressmen: "Substance Use and HIV Rise among Thai Women," "Patterns of Abuse in the Brazilian Rave Culture," "The Healing of the Canoe," and "The Impact of Dragon Boat Racing on CancerSurvivorship." The NIH would not reveal how much funding had been given to these programs.
NIH spokesman Don Ralbovsky said criticisms of those grants unfairly took those studies out of context. “This constant battle against illness and disease cannot be limited to biological factors but has to include behavioral and social factors as well,” he told NewMajority. “Some research on sex-related and substance abuse behavior is easy to ridicule if it is taken out of its public health context. The fact is, we need to explore a range of research avenues in vulnerable populations around the world to learn the best ways to prevent the spread of disease.”
The Institutes claimed that the grants to study substance abuse amongst Thai women and in the Brazilian rave culture were both necessary in order to "translate and adapt interventions that have proven to be effective in the U.S. to other communities and international settings." Further, the NIH supported its decision to fund the project on "The Healing of the Canoe" by stressing the need to plan and evaluate a "community-based and culturally congruent intervention to reduce health disparities and promote health in theSuquamish Tribe." Research on "The Impact of Dragon Boat Racing on Cancer Survivorship" was defended by a claim that there is still much to learn about optimizing quality of life among survivors.
Asked how the four grants align with the NIH’s goals, Ralbovsky could not link them to the Institutes’ specific research priorities. Instead, he said that the grants “fit into our overall mission,” but refused to comment further. When pressed on specific questions about the cost of the grants and how the grants align with the Institutes' specific research priorities, the NIH declined to answer. The NIH merely confirmed that none of the studies were funded by the stimulus package.
The NIH’s response was prompted by this FF report that revealed that Representatives Joe Barton (R-TX) and Greg Walden (R-OR), ranking members for the Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Sub-Committee on Oversight and Investigations, respectively, were preparing to send a letter of inquiry to NIH Director Dr. Frances Collins. The letter inquired as to how the four grants relate to the NIH’s funding priorities – a question that remains unanswered even after the NIH was pressed by NewMajority.
The NIH also refused to provide information about the denied grants. "The agency never releases information on grants that are not approved,” stated Ralbovsky, “that’s standard procedure." As a result, the true cost of these grants may never be evaluated, since information on alternative programs is not available.
Nevertheless, it would be reasonable to suggest, as Reps. Barton and Walden do in their letter, that valuable projects were passed over in favor of the grants itemized above. This is especially so when considering the increase in NIH grant requests over the last five years – in 2004, 24.6% of 40,861 grant applications were approved; in 2008, only 21.8% of 43,467 were.