While I will certainly disagree from time to time with the decisions that granting agencies make, I would much rather that people informed about the industry and the health prospects make such decisions.

Needless to say, the willingness to fund these wasteful overseas scientific jaunts to booze with prostitutes and employ different many colored condoms with the the high flying international Docs is just a syndrome of a disease, the pathological medically waste of the taxpayers' money.

1) Journals are reporting that 25 % of the figures received are fake, just manipulated Photoshop copy and paste. The reporting of the Photoshoped BS by the corrupt universities to the Office of Research Integrity, a central oversight agency, is only 1/100 of the mandatory reporting. Why? The liberal elite university do not want to put a condom on their cash cow that might hamper the money gravy train!

2) Universities/NIH are sending technology abroad (ultimately future jobs) using the cheap labor H1B and J1 visa programs. There are 464 H1bs just at Bethesda NIH, most from communist China using taxpayers' money. At just the top 100 H1b using universities there are 20,000 H1bs. For quick math, at 50,000 a salary 1 billion dollars of the stimulus will be sucked into their pockets, complete waste.

Maybe the Chinese condoms study should be performed in Bethesda and save the taxpayers' money spent on travel expenses?

So where is the surprise? Our corrupt universities/NIH produce scientists and hire foreign scientists that produce data that 25 % of the data is Photoshopped BS and now the scientists want to go abroad and booze it up with prostitutes on the taxpayers' dime thinking as long as they wear a condom it is OK.

I've never understood the role of pundits in our society. We seem to have this belief that “name-that-pundit” has something worthwhile to say about Iran, supreme court nominations, medical research, military strategy, and on and on. Of course, they don't, but we don't seem to care. We publish them anyway. Apparently it's critical to know what George Will (or whoever) has to think about everything, and then we present it as if it matters.

Rant over.

Seriously though I am all for people using condoms, it's the part of the study that questions whether they reduce sensitivity I think is a waste. I also am surprised at some of the posts implying they don't reduce sensitivity, are these women commenting or what?

http://www.detnews.com/article/20090611/POLITIC…

There's more to the article that just the part I quoted. For example:

Janssen said the research will be conducted among 500 men aged 18-24, though only 120 subjects will be involved during the laboratory phase, when scientists will conduct neurological exams and “test an instructional method on the correct and consistent use of condoms.”

There used to be a saying on the internet–Read the whole thing!

If this was just some attempt at Beavis-and-Butthead-level humor, maybe I'd just leave you all to your little snicker-fest. But I don't think there's anything wasteful in the government funding a study that tries to acquire actual data that might improve condom use.

Maybe the real joke here is how easy it was for Fox News to push your buttons.

Maybe the study is worth doing?

BTW, Proxmire was famous for giving awards to studies that turned out to be quite important scientifically. I have no problem with making a joke about studies, but when it turns into reduced funding for science based on a lack of knowledge of the field, which is what Proxmire did, it stops being so funny.

Anyway, there's already a group doing a similar function. An “Ignobel” is awarded to science that seems particularly stupid and worthless. I happen to know that one such award was given to a study that ascertained whether rats could tell two languages apart, perhaps French and Japanese. Without knowing why the research is done, of course it sounds stupid. Who gives a $@#% if a rat can tell two languages apart. Naturally, that wasn't the reason the study was done, since not even those psychologists wanted to know that in particular. It was done because we are trying to figure out how humans learn language, which could be helpful to know for many reasons. There's a proposal that only humans have certain learning capabilities and that it is this special manner of learning that explains why only humans have developed robust language. And so some scientists were trying to see if another mammal, a rat, could also learn in this way. Turns out they could.

I thought it was funny. So pfffffft.

Whatever the second part of Janssen's statement is about, the first part about sensation loss, or for that matter mood interuption, can be figured out on a street corner, at the local Lover's Leap or behind a barn.

Sorry you don't see the humor. I do.

Gosh.

I included what you just quoted in my own quotation in my first comment on this thread:

“Our study addresses important public health concerns in the U.S. and is the first study to test claims about arousal and sensation loss in a controlled scientific environment, while exploring factors that may be addressed in prevention and intervention programs,” Janssen told FOXNews.com.

If all they were studying was sensation loss, I guess everyone would be justified in making fun of this.

Since they're also looking for way to increase the use of condoms, I don't think this study is a waste, let alone humorous.

GeorgeS, to the extent the study is looking for ways to increase condom use I can see the justification. I think people are having trouble with this aspect:

“Our study addresses important public health concerns in the U.S. and is the first study to test claims about arousal and sensation loss in a controlled scientific environment,”

There is no need to test claims about arousal and sensation loss. This is like doing a study to see if it hurts to hit yourself on the head.

I guess I'll give this one more try.

The study is looking for ways to increase condom use.

Increased condom use would have a number of helpful benefits, including fewer out-of-wedlock births, fewer abortions, lessened STD transmission.

That's all.