Obama admin skewers GOP attack on stimulus cocaine monkeys
Washington Post, 8/5/10 - Are your stimulus dollars really being wasted on getting monkeys high on crack and cocaine?
In recent days, select Republicans and conservatives have taken to bashing the Obama administration over this claim. Sharron Angle has blasted Dems for giving money to "coked-up stimulus monkeys," and many others on the right have taken a similar tack.
Turns out, however, that this money is actually being spent on research into how to treat drug addiction in humans. And the Obama administration is going on record forcefully defending the project, sending over a statement pointing out that drug addiction is a rather serious problem and wondering whether GOP critics would prefer that we experiment on humans instead.
In case you missed it, senators John McCain and Tom Coburn got a lot of attention the other day when they issued a report alleging all kinds of ludicrous stimulus waste.
One bullet point in the report that got a ton of attention: "Monkeys Getting High for Science."
The McCain/Coburn report claimed this was a reference to a Federal grant of $71,623 to the Winston-Salem college to "study how monkeys react under cocaine."
And that's true. But the report didn't tell you why the monkeys' reaction to cocaine is being studied: To develop our understanding of how the brain chemistry of addiction works, in order to better combat drug addiction.
Administration officials say this grant was part of the roughly $8 billion in stimulus grants that the National Institutes of Health has doled out for scientific research, with the goal of creating jobs while advancing scientific knowledge. This particular grant is based on recent studies showing that drug users may get addicted because of a chemical in the brain called glutamate.
This research on cocaine monkeys is meant to determine how the parts of the brain that use glutamate change during and after exposure to cocaine. The idea is that knowing this will help develop more effective treatments for cocaine addiction -- in people, not in monkeys.
All such grants are reviewed by NIH scientists to establish the scientific validity of the studies receiving funding.
"Clearly, drug addiction is a serious problem facing our country, and finding new medical treatments is a high priority," NIH director Francis Collins tells me. "I don't know if the critics want us to experiment with humans, or just give up on the problem of drug addiction, but we aren't going to do either."
And indeed, it does appear that critics of this grant money either think we shouldn't be studying drug addiction at all or would prefer that we carry out such experiments on humans.
UPDATE, 11:23 a.m.: Here's another point to consider: Orrin Hatch recently called for the drug testing of recipients of unemployment benefits, on the theory that it would get people off drugs, turn them into productive members of society, and combat the debt. So you'd think these folks would embrace studies designed to reduce drug addiction -- for the sake of our economic well being.
Read the whole article
Obama admin skewers GOP attack on stimulus cocaine monkeys
Washington Post, 8/5/10 - Are your stimulus dollars really being wasted on getting monkeys high on crack and cocaine?
In recent days, select Republicans and conservatives have taken to bashing the Obama administration over this claim. Sharron Angle has blasted Dems for giving money to "coked-up stimulus monkeys," and many others on the right have taken a similar tack.
Turns out, however, that this money is actually being spent on research into how to treat drug addiction in humans. And the Obama administration is going on record forcefully defending the project, sending over a statement pointing out that drug addiction is a rather serious problem and wondering whether GOP critics would prefer that we experiment on humans instead.
In case you missed it, senators John McCain and Tom Coburn got a lot of attention the other day when they issued a report alleging all kinds of ludicrous stimulus waste.
One bullet point in the report that got a ton of attention: "Monkeys Getting High for Science."
The McCain/Coburn report claimed this was a reference to a Federal grant of $71,623 to the Winston-Salem college to "study how monkeys react under cocaine."
And that's true. But the report didn't tell you why the monkeys' reaction to cocaine is being studied: To develop our understanding of how the brain chemistry of addiction works, in order to better combat drug addiction.
Administration officials say this grant was part of the roughly $8 billion in stimulus grants that the National Institutes of Health has doled out for scientific research, with the goal of creating jobs while advancing scientific knowledge. This particular grant is based on recent studies showing that drug users may get addicted because of a chemical in the brain called glutamate.
This research on cocaine monkeys is meant to determine how the parts of the brain that use glutamate change during and after exposure to cocaine. The idea is that knowing this will help develop more effective treatments for cocaine addiction -- in people, not in monkeys.
All such grants are reviewed by NIH scientists to establish the scientific validity of the studies receiving funding.
"Clearly, drug addiction is a serious problem facing our country, and finding new medical treatments is a high priority," NIH director Francis Collins tells me. "I don't know if the critics want us to experiment with humans, or just give up on the problem of drug addiction, but we aren't going to do either."
And indeed, it does appear that critics of this grant money either think we shouldn't be studying drug addiction at all or would prefer that we carry out such experiments on humans.
UPDATE, 11:23 a.m.: Here's another point to consider: Orrin Hatch recently called for the drug testing of recipients of unemployment benefits, on the theory that it would get people off drugs, turn them into productive members of society, and combat the debt. So you'd think these folks would embrace studies designed to reduce drug addiction -- for the sake of our economic well being.
Read the whole article
