Despite sequester, feds spend over $1.5 million to study lesbian obesity
Over the last two years, the National Institutes of Health have awarded Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston over $1.5 million to learn why nearly three-quarters of lesbians are overweight, Todd Starnes reported Tuesday.
According to the NIH, gay males do not suffer from obesity as much as lesbians, and the government wants to know why, calling the disparity an issue of “high public-health significance."
"It is now well-established that women of minority sexual orientation are disproportionately affected by the obesity epidemic, with nearly three-quarters of adult lesbians overweight or obese, compared to half of heterosexual women,” the grant says. "In stark contrast, among men, heterosexual males have nearly double the risk of obesity compared to gay males."
According to the grant, researchers "will use longitudinal, repeated measures survey data and also biological data from three youth cohorts" that will ultimately include some 47,000 young people.
But Starnes reported that "future grant payments could be impacted by sequestration."
"It is not possible to say how this or any other NIH grant will be affected in the long term beyond the 90 percent funding levels already in place,” said NIH spokesman Robert Bock.
CNS News reported Monday that the hospital received two grants administered by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development for the study.
The first grant, given in 2011, was for $778,622 and the second, given in 2012, was for $741,378.
"The project has the potential to be a five-year study," CNS News said.
(Excerpt) Read more at examiner.com ...
Your tax dollars at work ...
