WASHINGTON: Lawmakers Assail NIH Funding For Sexual-Arousal Conference

[Murray Charters <mcharters@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

THE WASHINGTON TIMES
June 24, 2003
Lawmakers assail NIH funding for sexual-arousal conference
By Robert Stacy McCain

The National Institutes of Health continues to fund sex studies despite 
protests from members of Congress who say
projects such as paying women to watch pornography take taxpayer dollars away 
from potentially lifesaving research.

The critics' latest target of outrage: $26,000 in federal funds for a 
conference on sexual arousal next month at the
Kinsey Institute in Bloomington, Ind.  Discussion topics will "include the 
relationship ... between sexual motivation
and arousal," and development of "guidelines for ... measurement of sexual 
response," the conference organizer wrote in
his grant application.

"If this conference needs funding, they ought to hit up [pornographer] Larry 
Flynt, not taxpayers," said Rep. Jeff
Flake, Arizona Republican.

NIH documents obtained by The Washington Times show that the Bethesda-based 
federal agency's grant-review panel
"unanimously and enthusiastically" endorsed next month's conference where 
Northwestern University psychology professor
J. Michael Bailey will be a featured speaker.  It was a $147,000 NIH grant for 
a Bailey project ? paying women to view
pornography while using an instrument called a plethysmograph to measure their 
sexual responses ? that prompted 20
Republican members of Congress to sign a letter to the agency's director, 
demanding an explanation for what they called
"a bizarre spending decision."

"With the current state of the economy and government deficits, federal funds 
must be spent responsibly," Mr. Flake and
his House colleagues wrote in a March letter to NIH Director Dr. Elias Adam 
Zerhouni. "We request an explanation of the
criteria used for making project funding decisions. Specifically, we wish to 
know why funding for viewing pornography
takes priority over funding for disease research."

Mr. Bailey, whose latest book, "The Man Who Would Be Queen," examines 
homosexuality and other aspects of sexual
identity, is scheduled to participate in a panel about "Gender, Age & Sexual 
Orientation" on July 15, the final day of
the four-day conference.  The conference is funded through the NIH's National 
Institute of Child Health and Human
Development (NICHD).

"While the NIH can find money to pay women to watch pornography and fund a 
conference to tell everyone the obvious,
funding for autism, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's research continues to lag," 
said Rep. Dave Weldon, Florida Republican,
who is also a physician. "Clearly, the NIH grant-review process is broken, and 
I'm going to work to fix it."

NIH grant applications go through several levels of review.

According to NIH officials, those who reviewed the proposal for next month's 
conference "unanimously and
enthusiastically agreed that this is an opportune time to bring together the 
leaders in sexual psychophysiology for the
first major conference on this topic, and that there is a significant need for 
NIH support of scientific advancements
in this field rather than reliance on private-sector funding."  A spokesman for 
NICHD noted that its Web site,
describing the institute's research mission, includes the statement: "Learning 
about the reproductive health of men and
women and educating people about reproductive practices is important to both 
individuals and societies."

Christine Bachrach, chief of the NICHD's Demographic and Behavioral Sciences 
Branch, defended the grant for the Kinsey
Institute conference. "The purpose of the conference is to assess current 
scientific knowledge of behavioral,
psychological and biological factors relevant to sexual dysfunction and sexual 
behavior ? including behaviors that
spread sexually transmitted diseases," she said. "This information is important 
for developing treatments for sexual
dysfunction and for preventing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases."

Such explanations do not appease congressional critics.

"The federal government is pretty efficient at wasting money, but this may be a 
new low," Mr. Flake said. "Talk about
being out of touch. How do you think the average taxpayer is going to feel 
about having $26,000 of their money spent on
a conference to study sexual arousal?"

SOURCE: The Washington Times, DC


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