A conservative group is calling on congress to temporarily suspend funding to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) after releasing a study that found the agency wasted half a billion dollars in taxpayer money on bizarre projects, and also gave China $90 million America’s largest creditor, over the last decade for other research.
The Traditional Values Coalition which represent 43,000 churches across the country sent a letter to appropriations Committees in both the House and Senate, urging them to freeze funding for six months while investigating the agency’s research practices that are “striking working families across America as wasteful, illicit, and in many cases outright offensive.” Fox News
The group conducted a 6 month investigation into the NIH’s budget and discovered that the agency awarded more than $90 million to the Chinese government over the last decade, including $30 million in the last two and half years alone to scientists working at Chinese universities and institutions to research medical issues that affect Chinese citizens.
Also the group found upon further investigation, that NIH has paid more than half a billion in funding grants to researchers to “conduct bizarre projects such as trying to find out if a mother rat will abandon her babies if given cocaine, and asking individuals to mail in their toenail clippings.” Fox News
“As our country heads to fiscal ruin, why are we giving millions in taxpayer dollars to Chinese science – which benefits China and its institutions – when they hold more than $1 trillion in American debt?” asked Andrea Lafferty, president of the TVC.
“It is simply unacceptable for the NIH to pay Chinese researchers to study acupuncture, or fund international research, when we are struggling to pay our own debts,” she said. “That China, our biggest creditor, is the recipient makes this waste all the more credible.” Fox News
And over the past decade, China also received a $718,000 EPA grant for air pollution efforts. These MIH funded programs include $2 million for Chinese and American scientists to develop a vaccine against parasites that affect water buffalo, snails and about 1 million Chinese citizens. NIH defended its practices and research in China, saying “Americans benefit enormously from research that has taken place around the world.”
NIH spokesman John Burklow said, China, with the world’s largest population, “represents an important opportunity to examine a comprehensive approach to HIV prevention.” Fox News
“International research on HIV/AIDS is essential, because this disease is a global epidemic that does not stop at national boundaries,” he said. He also said the study to develop a vaccine against parasites “will benefit many people around the world, including the many people in the U.S. who suffer from parasitic diseases.”
Noreen Martin
/ 08/03/2011IT IS ABOUT TIME THAT THE NIH FUNDING IS LOOKED AT CLOSELY. IT HAS SPEND 1/3 OF A TRILLION TAX DOLLARS ON AIDS WHICH ISN’T IN THE TOP 15 CAUSES OF DEATH IN THIS COUNTRY. LAST YEAR THERE WERE 10,179 DEATHS FROM AIDS IN AMERICA. OUT OF 311.7 MILLION AMERICANS APPROXIMATELY 16,000 HAVE AIDS AND 1/2 TO 2/3 THIRDS OF THESE PEOPLE ARE CLINCALLY HEALTHY. AIDS IN AMERICA AFFECTS .005 OF 1% OF THE POPULATION.
WE CANNOT CONTINUE TO WASTE OUR TAX DOLLARS ON AIDS, ESPECIALLY SINCE THERE ARE MORE DESERVING DISEASES AND “ORPHAN” DISEASES. MANY PEOPLE KNOWN AS AIDS RETHINKERS HAVE LEARNED THE TRUTH ABOUT AIDS, HAVE STOPPED THE TOXIC MEDICINES AND ARE LIVING NORMAL, HEALTHY LIVES.
IT IS HIGH TIME THAT CONGRESS HAVE AN INVESTIGATION IN THE REAL CAUSE(S) OF AIDS AND INTO THIS MASSIVE WASTE OF AIDS FUNDING. I ENCOURAGE PEOPLE TO CONTACT THEIR REPRESENTATIVES ABOUT THIS ISSUE, AS ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!