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.
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