Tax dollars wasted on useless research

OK, so let's say you are a learned professor at the Boston University School of Public Health. You have a wall filled with credentials and certificates and degrees. You are in a unique position to work on health issues that may eventually lead to medical breakthroughs. The subject matter is endless - cancer research, heart disease, childhood ailments, etc. Given a fistful of taxpayer grants and a virtually unlimited research budget, just what major health issue would you address?

How about lesbian obesity!

Well, that is exactly what has captured the attention of a Boston University research team. The highly educated elite are tackling the important issue of obesity among the lesbian population though their report doesn't really explain why. And for the life of me, I can't explain it either.

Don't get me wrong. I have absolutely nothing against the lesbian community nor do I have a major issue with obesity. My problem is with the education community who siphon precious tax dollars for studies that border on the ridiculous. I would argue that there is not one single issue of importance concerning the weight of the lesbian community.

Here's a bit of irony as well. If I have read the study correctly, the lesbian obesity research shows that the team doing the study cannot determine why lesbians are more prone to obesity than heterosexual women. So there you have it. Not only is the study useless but it's also inconclusive.

I think our problem is we have far too much money. If grant money - funded with your taxes - is not spent, it returns to the national treasury where it's recycled into more grant money. Those in the higher education research community know that they must spend those dollars or someone else will get them. So they concoct costly useless studies. I, for one, am not impressed.

Let me be in charge of giving out grant money for research. Believe me, the mystery of lesbian obesity would remain a mystery. How cow flatulence impacts the environment would also remain a mystery. My list is virtually endless.

You could do a study on the shopping habits of blue-eyed women. Or you could study which hand fishermen use to put a worm on their hook. But when the study is complete, what good is provided and what public need is served. You know the answer to that and you most certainly don't need a study to tell you the obvious.

For now, we'll have to accept the fact that apparently there is a weight issue among the general lesbian population. But I'm unwilling to spend my tax dollar on any additional studies that are useless. I could even argue that wasting taxpayer money on such a study borders on fraud.