So there’s this right wing idiot on my timeline saying:
“Sick of paying high taxes? Stop voting for these idiots who think it’s worthwhile to spend $85M on a climate change studying the effects on pregnant women…”
It has a snippet from ‘Build Back Better’ bill that says basically the same thing.
Can anyone help out in telling me why this is important, and why the price tag? I’m sick of this guy posting his nonsense.
I think you would need to link to whatever he’s talking about.
It is possible (knowing politicians) he found some pork in the bill. It is also possible he is misrepresenting something.
Too many remember shrimp on treadmills, too few understand why it was important research.
I don’t know how to share the post… I DID look it up, and it is in the BBB plan… but I can’t find any other info with that number attached.
Apparently this 2013 NIH study traveled into the future to be funded by the not-yet-passed BBB bill.
Please, I would love to know what the purpose of that study was for!
{…} In fact, the work had an important goal. It sought to probe why this species’ immune system hasn’t been fighting off infection as it should. If he and other researchers can figure that out, they just might be able to develop a treatment. That, in turn, could let farmers raise larger numbers of healthy shrimp. {…}
As an example of why you might spend money on the effects of climate change on pregnant women, Zika is a disease that can have a drastic effect on fetuses, but is not too bad for the rest of us. If the climate warms and we get more zika-carrying mosquitos up here, we may want to find ways to mitigate that.
I don’t know if that’s what they’re studying, but there’s something off the top of my non-climatologist, non-epidemiologist head.
This is very interesting stuff. I’m glad I asked.
Would you guys include the ‘shrimp on treadmills’ thing in a response to this goober as an example? Or should wait on more information specific to this subject?
Here’s the whole section. And it’s not just “climate change’s effect on pregnant women”:
SEC. 31046. FUNDING FOR EDUCATION AND TRAINING AT HEALTH PROFESSIONS
SCHOOLS TO IDENTIFY AND ADDRESS HEALTH RISKS ASSOCIATED
WITH CLIMATE CHANGE.(a) In General.–In addition to amounts otherwise available, there
is appropriated to the Secretary for fiscal year 2022, out of any money
in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, $85,000,000, to remain
available until expended, for grants to accredited medical schools,
accredited schools of nursing, teaching hospitals, accredited midwifery
programs, physician assistant education programs, residency or
fellowship programs, or other schools or programs determined
appropriate by the Secretary, to support the development and
integration of education and training programs for identifying and
addressing health risks associated with climate change for pregnant,
lactating, and postpartum individuals.
(b) Use of Funds.–Amounts made available by subsection (a) shall
be used for developing, integrating, and implementing curriculum and
continuing education that focuses on the following:
(1) Identifying health risks associated with climate change
for pregnant, lactating, and postpartum individuals and
individuals with the intent to become pregnant.
(2) How health risks associated with climate change affect
pregnant, lactating, and postpartum individuals and individuals
with the intent to become pregnant.
(3) Racial and ethnic disparities in exposure to, and the
effects of, health risks associated with climate change for
pregnant, lactating, and postpartum individuals and individuals
with the intent to become pregnant.
(4) Patient counseling and mitigation strategies relating
to health risks associated with climate change for pregnant,
lactating, and postpartum individuals.
(5) Relevant services and support for pregnant, lactating,
and postpartum individuals relating to health risks associated
with climate change and strategies for ensuring such
individuals have access to such services and support.
(6) Implicit and explicit bias, racism, and discrimination
in providing care to pregnant, lactating, and postpartum
individuals and individuals with the intent to become pregnant.
So a better way to phrase it would be “85 mil towards keeping pregnant women healthy and safe.” What’s the objection to that?
Yes. And since pregnant women hold the keys to the future of the human race, it might be important to anticipate the ways in which climate change can affect fertility, pregnancy, access to prenatal care, and any number of other things. Not knowing exactly what it is you or your friend are seeing, it’s impossible to answer completely.
Plus it’s not “On a climate change study…” implying that some moneybags scientist is getting $85m to spend on a single study. It’s $85m spread among numerous facilities in the form of various grants (that will need to be approved) for Climate/Pregnancy/Postpartum related research. The first one raises eyebrows (even if it was somehow justified), the second is much more mundane.
That works out to 26 cents per person in the US.
I think Republican males should stop their assault on women and reproduction.
Shrimp aquaculture is a multi-billion dollar industry. Shrimp are susceptible to numerous pathogens such as viruses that result in millions of dollars in losses per year. These pathogens can kill the shrimp, but can also just make them sick, resulting in low productivity and poor quality as food.
If you’re studying this, how do you tell is a shrimp is sick, how can you tell if whatever treatment you’re studying is effective, and how do you quantitatively measure it? One way is to measure te activity level of the shrimp. How do you do that? You build a shrimp treadmill.
Also, as much as that study is held up as a symbol of waste by republicans, it is, like most of the bullshit they spew, totally misrepresented. The researchers didn’t spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a shrimp treadmill. They had a grant to study shrimp pathogens. If I recall correctly, they built the treadmill for about 20 bucks and I think it was actually out of pocket.
If your friend is looking for places where the budget is overrun with wasted spending, there is no better place to start than the military.
For example, take the latest and greatest in fighter plane technology, the F-35.
“ According to the GAO, since 2012 the expected lifetime sustainment costs of the F-35 fleet have increased over $150 billion from $1.1 to $1.27 trillion. And by 2036 this means the F-35 fleet will be costing the Air Force $4.4 billion more annually to operate than it can afford, unless it can reduce sustainment costs nearly by half.
The service, which operates the least expensive F-35A variant, has by far the biggest operating sustainment overruns. The GAO forecasts F-35As would cost $7.8 million per plane per year of operations—$3.7 million more than the Air Force’s ‘affordable’ budgetary target. That means the service must reduce operating costs by 47% to attain affordability. The GAO report claims that even if spare parts were furnished for free , the F-35A would overrun budget targets.“
Republican response to the discovery of penicillin:
“Thousands of tax payer dollars wasted studying whether mold gets sick!”
Exactly. I blame William Proxmire.