The following post first appeared on FactCheck.org.
Sen. Rand Paul made several misleading statements about the National Institutes of Health and some of the research that it funds.
Paul spoke at the American Spectator Annual Gala in Washington (at the 10:03 mark), and commented on how he has tried to point out potential areas where government spending could be reduced.
Paul, Feb. 11: Remember when we were talking about Ebola last year? Everybody was going crazy about Ebola, and they’re like, oh Republicans didn’t spend enough at the NIH. And they didn’t spend enough on infectious disease. Turns out, the budget had been going up for years and years at NIH, the budget had been going up for infectious disease. You know how much they spent on Ebola? One-40th of the budget was being spent on Ebola. But you know what we did discover? They spent a million dollars trying to determine whether male fruit flies like younger female fruit flies. I think we could have polled the audience and saved a million bucks.
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Editor’s Note: SciCheck is made possible by a grant from the Stanton Foundation.
– Dave Levitan
Disclosure: The author’s father is a neuroscientist who has received NIH funding to do research involving Drosophila melanogaster.
