When it comes to fraud, waste, and abuse, most criminals and big government spenders will hang around one of three big areas: Social Security, Medicare, and welfare.
This isn’t one of those places. This kind of waste is new.
You’ve probably heard half a dozen stories about the government paying people to tell us what we already know. ‘Being obese is unhealthy;’ well, thanks, genius. ‘Smoking is bad for you;’ you don’t say.
And today, we’ve got a new one: ‘drinking soda isn’t good for you.’ And this particular gem of an observation comes with – wait for it – a $1.6 million price tag.
That’s right – a million and a half, to be able to tell people that soda isn’t good for you.
The Daily Caller reports:
The National Institute of Health (NIH) awarded Augusta University physiologist Ruth Harris $1.6 million to study the health effects of soft drinks on people.
The four year grant will be used to determine why the sugar sucrose is more potent, or causes weight gain faster, when drank in the form of a soda than when it is eaten as solid food.
So, to be fair, we’re not so much discovering that soda is bad for you – we’re just trying to determine how bad. Interesting question, I guess. But I can’t see the answer being worth $1.6 million.
Or anywhere close to $1.6 million.
And it’s hard to see just where all these expenses are coming from.
[Physiologist Ruth] Harris will use lab rats for the study, feeding them sugar water and measuring their bodies’ response. Harris’ research focuses on the hormone leptin, which helps control body composition.
Maybe…maybe the rats are really expensive? Perhaps we’re having them shipped in. From Mars.
The most astonishing part of this whole study is found in the Caller’s last paragraph:
The $1.6 million grant will cover four years of research, at the end of which Harris will have to finish her research on the project or reapply for more funding.
So, you’re saying…this could cost more than $1.6 million? Dear God.
Look, let’s make this easy – soda is bad for you. Don’t drink too much of it.
And all that little conclusion cost me was common sense.
There. I just saved taxpayers well over a million dollars.
(And a lot of rats a terrible, terrible obese fate.)
Source: Daily Caller
