Sen. Rand Paul said wasteful spending, not budget cuts, hurt a push by the National Institutes of Health to develop a vaccine for Ebola.

On Wednesday Mr. Paul tweeted an article posted by The Daily Mail, listing various studies conducted by NIH, including $2.4 million spent on “origami condoms” and $257,000 spent on a companion website for first lady Michelle Obama’s White House garden.

And at a rally to boost Virginia GOP congressional candidates, Mr. Paul said it was wrong for NIH officials to claim they’ve been shortchanged.

“We have people who go blithely on TV and say ‘we don’t have enough money to study Ebola.’ Have you seen what the NIH spends money on?” Mr. Paul said, The Washington Post reported. “Nine hundred and thirty-nine thousand dollars spent to discover whether or not male fruit flies would like to consort with younger female fruit flies, $117,000 spent to determine that most monkeys are right-handed and like to throw poop with their right hand apparently.”

In an interview with The Huffington Post, NIH director Dr. Francis Collins said that funding cuts had “slowed down” research for vaccinations for infectious diseases such as Ebola.

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