Study spends $423,500 to figure out why men don’t like to wear condoms
Oh, yeah. That’s money well spent.
The federal government is spending $423,500 to find out why men don’t like to wear condoms, a project government watchdogs say is a nearly-half-a-million-dollar waste of taxpayer money.
Researchers at Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute, with funding from the National Institutes of Health, are investigating why “young, heterosexual adult men” have problems using condoms. The study will include “skill-based intervention” to teach grown men how to use protection.
The first phase of the two-year study will be a simple Q&A, but doctors say the second phase will plumb uncharted territory.
“The second phase involves a laboratory study, and focuses on penile erection and sensitivity during condom application,” reads the abstract from Drs. Erick Janssen and Stephanie Sanders, both of the Kinsey Institute.
“The project aims to understand the relationship between condom application and loss of erections and decreased sensation, including the role of condom skills and performance anxiety, and to find new ways to improve condom use among those who experience such problems.”
You know, I’m betting we could figure out why men don’t like using them for a helluva lot cheaper than $423,500. And even if we agree that such a study is worthy, why is it the public that needs to be paying for it? I would think that the manufacturers of such items would be 1) motivated to figure out how to increase their usage and, thereby, sales, 2) in a far better position to know what they’re talking about as regards the problems and (ahem) shortcomings of their product, and 3) in a far better position to actually do something about those problems once identified.
I love the line in this story that the money represents, “just a crumb in the NIH [budgetary] pie.” Like the man said, a billion here and a billion there and pretty soon you’re talking real money. I, personally, am talking real money at the 1st billion and you get there by being casually dismissive of $400,000 expenditures. There’s a lot of serious medical therapy development and pharmaceutical research that could use a spare $400K, I’m sure. Perhaps we ought to be spending it there or, better still, not spending that money at all.
