Despite all of the left media complaints about how the GOP “hates science” and is slashing important funding, the Senate recently approved a two billion dollar increase in the budget for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). And given all the diseases running rampant, expanding work on cancer treatments and other advances, that’s probably a fair expenditure, right? That bump represents a 6% increase and brings their budget up to $36.1B.

So what will they be doing with this newfound taxpayer largess? Are they finally on the trail of a cure for Alzheimer’s Disease? Sadly no, but they will be commissioning a bunch of new studies into transgender issues at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars each. The Free Beacon had the story earlier this week.

The National Institutes of Health announced its plans for funding numerous new studies on transgender issues that will cost $200,000 each. The agency released two announcements Friday that it will soon begin accepting applications for transgender studies to begin next year, on the heels of the Republican-controlled Senate approving a $2 billion spending increase for the agency.

If that was as far as you read on the subject you might be thinking that this could actually be a good thing. After all, it’s the National Institutes of Health, right? This is a subject which has been in the news quite a bit and perhaps it might be helpful to study how people wind up suffering from gender dysphoria and see if there’s any additional help available. After all, our most prominent medical associations still classify this as a mental illness. But no… if you read a bit further it’s nothing of the sort. (Emphasis added)

“This funding opportunity announcement (FOA) calls for exploratory or developmental research on the health of transgender and gender nonconforming people,” according to a grant announcement. “Transgender and gender nonconforming people encompass individuals whose gender identity differs from the sex on their original birth certificate, including individuals who are making or who have made a transition from being identified as one gender to the other, as well as individuals who are questioning their gender identity, who identify with more than one gender, or whose gender expression varies significantly from what is traditionally associated with or typical for that sex.”

Yes indeed. These $200K studies are not about treating gender dysphoria, but are apparently more efforts to normalize it. And the taxpayers will foot the bill.

There are, however, a couple of other areas of study being discussed which might prove beneficial in the long run. These three subjects are really crying out for some actual science to be brought to bear.

Biological underpinnings of gender and gender identity

How estrogen hormone treatments affect the male reproductive tissues

Studies on puberty blockers for adolescents.

Assuming they can find someone who isn’t prioritizing politics over actual medical science, the first item on the list might attempt to force someone to come up with any “proof” that there’s a medical definition of being transgender beyond the subject feeling that way. The long term effects of massive doses of hormones which would normally only be found in minute amounts in patients of either actual gender could also use a look.

But the biggest item on that list is the last one. The idea that we have doctors in this country injecting children with foreign substances designed to intentionally retard the normal development of their otherwise healthy bodies is beyond belief. That’s not a medical procedure… it’s a war crime. These are doctors who not only shouldn’t have a license to practice any more but should probably be in jail.

Will the NIH answer any of these questions? It would be nice to think so, but given how they are describing the subject matter I’m not hopeful. And this is yet another subject where I have to wonder how this funding is being put in place in 2017. Didn’t we get some new people in charge recently? The NIH falls under the Department of Health and Human Services. I’m pretty sure Tom Price is in charge of that these days, though the head of the NIH is Obama era holdover Francis Collins. Does Price know about these studies and did he give them the thumbs up? We’ll see if we can find out.