# So what happens when you give big research grants to loons? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 12, 2015, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-happens-when-you-give-big-research-grants-to-loons/734433 "2015-10-12T16:23:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2015, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-happens-when-you-give-big-research-grants-to-loons/734433/1 "2015-10-12T16:23:48Z")
[This](http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/concordia-professor-condemns-hpv-vaccine-after-winning-270k-federal-grant-to-study-it). \*"A Montreal social scientist and the federal agency that awarded her almost $300,000 to study the HPV vaccine are facing criticism after the professor condemned the vaccine and called for a moratorium on its use. Concordia University’s Genevieve Rail also said there is no proof that the human papillomavirus directly causes cervical cancer, though a German scientist was awarded the Nobel Prize five years ago for discovering the link. Experts say Rail’s public attacks are seriously misinformed and risk undermining an important public-health program — and they question why the Canadian Institute for Health Research (CIHR) would fund her work. The $270,000 that Rail — who has a doctorate in kinesiology — received is to examine HPV vaccination “discourses” and their effect on teenagers, using in part interviews and drawings."\* This professor of “feminist cultural studies of health” is in severe denial about an infectious disease that results in 1,500 new cancer diagnoses and 380 deaths of Canadian women annually (plus many, many thousands more who undergo invasive procedures to diagnose and treat HPV-induced cervical dysplasia). She has collected anecdotes from some parents about supposed fatigue in their kids after HPV vaccination, and that’s enough proof for her that the vaccine is Bad (contrary to overwhelming evidence that it’s [as](http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/vaccines/hpv/hpv-safety-faqs.html) [safe](http://www.snopes.com/medical/drugs/gardasil.asp) [as](http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2012/06/20/more-on-why-the-adverse-event-reports-on-gardasil-dont-point-to-a-problem/) other routine immunizations).\* _“Rail is described on the Concordia website as a feminist critic of “body-related institutions” like health industries, big pharma and the media, who favours “poststructuralist, de/post(c)olonial and queer approaches.””_ Quoting from the site, her interests also include “issues related to fatness”, which apparently is the poststructuralist term for obesity. :dubious: \*in the interest of full disclosure, it should be noted that deaths have been reported to the VAERS database in association with administration of the HPV vaccine, though the great majority are difficult to even tenuously connect with it, including suicides, fatal auto accidents and someone who fell down a well a couple of weeks after getting the vaccine and died. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2015, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-happens-when-you-give-big-research-grants-to-loons/734433/2 "2015-10-12T16:53:08Z")
in the movies, this: > **[Simon (1980 film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_(1980_film))** > > Simon is a 1980 American comedy film written and directed by Marshall Brickman and starring Alan Arkin. The plot concerns a university professor manipulated into thinking he is an alien from space by a think tank, whose members scheme to use him to create a media circus. > The Institute for Advanced Concepts is a think tank composed of five scientists with an unlimited budget and a propensity for fabricating national hysterias. The five hatch a plan to trick a man into thinking he is of extraterre... > [@](#): > > The Institute for Advanced Concepts, a group of scientists with an unlimited budget and a propensity for elaborate pranks, brainwash a psychology professor named Simon Mendelssohn who was abandoned at birth and manage to convince him, and the rest of the world, that he is of extraterrestrial origin. Simon escapes and attempts to reform American culture by overriding TV signals with a high-powered TV transmitter, becoming a national celebrity in the process. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2015, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-happens-when-you-give-big-research-grants-to-loons/734433/3 "2015-10-12T19:17:49Z")
This, my friends, is why the best scientists are anti-social. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-happens-when-you-give-big-research-grants-to-loons/734433/4 "2015-10-14T01:59:36Z")
(checking the exchange rate so I’m not whooshing myself) But it’s $270,000 in _ **Canadian** _ money, not _ **real** _ money. ---
**Author:** ![X.L.Lent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/a5b964/32.png) [@X.L.Lent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/X.L.Lent)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-happens-when-you-give-big-research-grants-to-loons/734433/5 "2015-10-14T07:28:50Z")
Did they pay for the research with [loonies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loonie)? ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-happens-when-you-give-big-research-grants-to-loons/734433/6 "2015-10-14T18:03:41Z")
The Loons get ambushed by Muskies, who steal the money. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-happens-when-you-give-big-research-grants-to-loons/734433/7 "2015-10-14T18:14:03Z")
Currency jokes aside (it comes out to ~$200k US), it’s not going to pay for much research. So I wouldn’t call it a big research grant. But I’m not sure much real research is intended. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-happens-when-you-give-big-research-grants-to-loons/734433/8 "2015-10-14T18:19:39Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > _“Rail is described on the Concordia website as a feminist critic of “body-related institutions” like health industries, big pharma and the media, who favours “poststructuralist, de/post(c)olonial and queer approaches.””_ This certainly would appear to be a “queer approach” to medicine. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-happens-when-you-give-big-research-grants-to-loons/734433/9 "2015-10-14T20:38:30Z")
They probably just spend it on flying south first class. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2015, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-happens-when-you-give-big-research-grants-to-loons/734433/10 "2015-10-15T17:41:38Z")
How does a kinesiologist get a grant to study vaccine outcomes even if she’s not a loon? Are they giving medical research grants to DFAs too?