Feds Spend $236,517 for Cellphone Game to Teach 11-Year-Old Kenyans How to Use Condoms

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is spending over $200,000 to create a mobile game that will teach young teens in Kenya to use condoms.

The game also seeks to “educate very young adolescents” about HIV and “harmful gender norms.”

“The overall goal of the proposed project is to contribute to reductions in HIV incidence among youth in sub- Saharan Africa,” according to the NIH grant. “The objective of our proposed study is to advance that goal by developing, building and pilot-testing an interactive electronic game for preadolescents that will be informed by socio-behavioral and pedagogical theories, evidence-based practice, and unique formative research on youth sexual culture in sub- Saharan Africa.”

The primary goal of the project is to “design and develop a mobile phone game for young Kenyans ages 11-14 focused on increasing age at sexual debut and condom use at first sex.”

The game will be tested on 60 young teens in western Kenya to see whether they are willing to play the game and to evaluate how much they like it.

Researchers believe the game could reduce unintended pregnancy, “challenge harmful gender norms and HIV stigma, and foster dialogue with parents and guardians.”

The study has cost taxpayers $236,517 so far.

Via: WFB

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DNC Chief Wasserman Schultz: “Tea Party Extremists Holding Cancer Patients Hostage”…

She also claims she voted against NIH funding because, “I care about cancer survivors.”

Via: Weasel Zippers

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Feds Spending $2.2 Million to Study Lesbian Obesity

The federal government has spent $2.2 million studying why three quarters of lesbians are obese despite sequestration-mandated budget cuts that critics warned could “delay progress in medical breakthroughs.”

The National Institutes of Health awarded an additional $682,873 to Brigham and Women’s Hospital for the study on July 17. The project had received previous grants of $778,622 in 2011, and $741,378 in 2012. Total funding has reached $2,202,873.

The project has survived budget cuts due to sequestration, which the NIH warned would “delay progress in medical breakthroughs.”

The study, being led by S. Bryn Austin, an associate epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, sets out to find the biological and social factors for why “three-quarters” of lesbians are obese and why gay males are not.

At the time this study was first reported, a spokesman for the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), which is administering the project, said its future was uncertain because of the sequester.

“The NIH is currently assessing the impact on funding due to sequestration,” said Robert Bock, press officer for the NICHD, in March. “It is not possible to say how this (or any other NIH grant) will be affected in the long term beyond the 90 percent funding levels already in place.”

Via: WFB

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