No Joke: Stimulus Money Went to Study Erectile Dysfunction In Obese Men
Via Drudge comes news that we here at Reason saw coming years ago. Really. Just look below.
NBC's Bay Area affiliate reports that $250,000 in stimulus funds sent to University of California-San Francisco ended up lining the pockets of researchers looking into links between obesity and erectile dysfunction:
The University declined to provide an expert to talk with the NBC Investigative Unit about the erectile dysfunction grant. In a written statement provided they said in part, "Obesity related health issues currently cost $147 Billion per year in direct medical costs in the United States….. Health providers therefore continue to search for incentives to encourage people to live a healthier lifestyle, to benefit both indviduals and society…. Preliminary analysis indicates that is is feasible to enroll men in this type of research, they successfully lose the expected weight over a 12-week period, and they see an improvement in ED symptoms."
While UCSF played coy about the ED study, they did cop openly to getting over $1 million to figure out how to get more accurate responses while doing sex surveys.
Read "How Stimulus Fails" for more reasons not to fund shovel-ready projects. Or any other projects.
Back in February 2009, Reason.tv advertised for Stimulis, the perfect drug for economies with performance issues:
Needless to say, I missed Katherine Mangu-Ward's original post on exactly the same story with exactly the same video. Read her better commentary here.
