Ebola Threatens Us Because of NIH Budget Cuts! And Here's Our Latest $31 Million NIH Grant for Diversity

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) leader Francis Collins has claimed that budget cuts kept his organization from having already developed an Ebola vaccine.

Today, the NIH proudly announces:

the award of nearly $31 million in fiscal year 2014 funds to develop new approaches that engage researchers, including those from backgrounds underrepresented in biomedical sciences, and prepare them to thrive in the NIH-funded workforce. These awards are part of a projected five-year program to support more than 50 awardees and partnering institutions in establishing a national consortium to develop, implement, and evaluate approaches to encourage individuals to start and stay in biomedical research careers. Supported by the NIH Common Fund and all NIH 27 institutes and centers, 12 awards will be issued as part of three initiatives of the Enhancing the Diversity of the NIH-Funded Workforce program.

There's nowhere to cut, and every dollar we don't give the government is some vital-to-civilization goal unmet.

Nick Gillespie blogged on the nonsense of claiming budgetary restraint hobbled the government's ability to respond intelligently and effectively to Ebola.

Comments

[Pro Libertate]

The diversity of. . .DEATH.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Didn't that batshit crazy guy who spoke to the Oathkeepers after Ferguson say something awesome like "I believe in diversity; I'll kill anyone"?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Read between the lines. Doherty is saying diversity = Africans and Africa = Ebola. BUSTED.

[Paul.]

something very akin to hiding the ball, including (as cited by Sullivan) the quiet legal revamping of the business onto a religious basis in recent weeks and the silent removal of extensive language on its website that

Oh right, because you only get freedom of association on religious grounds. I keep forgetting the non-religious don't enjoy that right.

[Paul.]

Doh! wrong thread.

[Sevo]

..."prepare them to thrive in the NIH-funded workforce."...

So $31M to teach people to write grant applications?

[The Other Kevin]

Think of it as a perpetual motion machine in the shape of a feeding trough.

[Eggs Benedict Cumberbund]

A Klein bottle...

[Sevo]

A Moebius loop!

[Suthenboy]

I am stealing that. Thats good.

[ATXChappy]

I'd thrive too if they'd grant me $31 million.

[Episiarch]

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) leader Francis Collins has claimed that budget cuts kept his organization from having already developed an Ebola vaccine.

Uh huh. And cancer. And death. So what does it cost to develop something that fends of parasites like Collins?

[Episiarch]

Whoops, "And cured cancer. And death."

[The Late P Brooks]

Ribbons for everybody!

[OldMexican]

When the Proggies latch on a talking point, they really run with it until the damned thing becomes a cliche and the theme of jokes.

"Why is there an Ebola epidemic? Didn't we receive money for that thing?
Oh, we had to use it to put Shrimpy the shrimp back in the treadmill!"

[cavalier973]

Ebola cannot be cured unless people with different melanin levels work on the solution together.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Watch melanocytes turn out to be the cure for Ebola.

[UnCivilServant]

Don't people in Africa have plenty of those? As in as many as everyone else, but just more active? They also seem the most effected.

[Troy muy grande boner]

WE need a government agency. Something to control diseases.

[Tech]

I simply cannot wrap my head around this 'diversity in the workplace' shit. At no point should anyone, anywhere hire someone simply because they're not white (Let's call a spade a spade here, shall we?) -- There is only one legitimate reason to hire an employee, and that is because they're the -best fucking candidate- for the job, full stop.

[Jon Lester]

Diversity in the workplace happens naturally when you keep your standards high and give equal opportunity to apply for very demanding work, as was readily visible at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory when Curiosity landed on Mars a couple years back. Obviously, any further interference with hiring practices there would have been disastrous, so government ought to have learned that from itself already.

[Suthenboy]

What are you two (Tech and Jon) talking about? Diversity in the workplace is the goal, not the means to it. They don't give a screaming, frothy, fuck about practical outcomes.

[Jon Lester]

It's not unlike a couple of people at Peach Pundit today, who tried to tell me I don't get math, because I'd rather new road construction revenues come from opt-in programs than a hike in the state gas tax, and they were asking what I wasn't getting about the old fuel tax not being adjusted for inflation. These same people, on other topics, are always quick to cite "falling real wages" over the last 20-30 years, and are even quicker to want to bilk more of those wages out of every consumer, regardless of bracket. And, yes, they usually do speak as if there's nothing to cut, nothing government can do divest itself of things beyond its proper scope, nothing wrong with buying new vehicles for state (and even metro Atlanta city and county) government employees, what have you.

[PapayaSF]

I'll bet Muslims are underrepresented in our biomedical sciences, so maybe they could get Aafia Siddiqui. I hear she's not busy these days.

[PapayaSF]

Speaking of diversity, did folks see my late post of yesterday, about how historic preservation can be racist?

The urban playground at Union Station isn't drawing people of color and it may be the building's fault.

[Jon Lester]

I think the author hasn't been to Billings since the energy boom. It's still pretty white, but now it's full of meth addicts and petty criminals. It was also the bleakest stop of my 2 1/2 day bus ride from Missoula to Athens last June, and that's saying a lot.

[Suthenboy]

I read the NIH statement and I get nothing. It is meaningless. There is no 'need' to promote diversity. They do not define how we will profit from this. There is no mention of anything resembling success in the medical field.

I am guessing that the 'workforce' they end up with is less than second rate. This is nothing less than outright theft.

[Brandon]

My alma mater sent me an email yesterday promoting their upcoming seminar on Diversity, Engagement and Inclusion and asking for money. I told them they seem to have enough money if they can afford to waste it on organized navel gazing. Diversity is great, but if it's not natural it's fucking meaningless.