[honk]

That headline is extremely misleading, in case anyone is wondering. Certainly no fraud was involved.

[garygreen]

I'm not sure why you think that everyone should unquestioningly agree with all medical research. Big Pharma is not interested in treating or even investigating the root of the issue, only treating the symptoms, meaning that you pay tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for an extra few years of suffering instead of doing something that actually fixes the root issue.

even if that were true, that doesn't have anything to do with NIH research grants.

But aside from that major concern, I don't see a problem with cancer organizations being shuttered if they are defrauding the public. See this one, for instance.

i am begging you to please stop just immediately believing the first thing you read on nypost. please.

also president elon isn't auditing the books and shuttering specific organizations that are wasting money. he's simply illegally shuttering a bunch of cancer research across the board because he doesn't understand how NIH funding works.

but for the sake of argument, let's pretend for the moment that this headline is 100% true and there is some org out there just stealing cancer research money or whatever. and let's also suppose that for some weird reason, we can't just shut down the offending org. we can either have cancer research + waste, or we can have no waste but also no cancer research.

why is the latter better? like, wouldn't it be better for a child with cancer to have access to cancer treatments, even if the cost is that there is some wasted money? does every system have to be completely efficient or it just shouldn't exist at all?

[Lord Dave]

I'm not sure why you think that everyone should unquestioningly agree with all medical research. Big Pharma is not interested in treating or even investigating the root of the issue, only treating the symptoms, meaning that you pay tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for an extra few years of suffering instead of doing something that actually fixes the root issue.

But aside from that major concern, I don't see a problem with cancer organizations being shuttered if they are defrauding the public. See this one, for instance.

https://nypost.com/2020/11/14/biden-cancer-initiative-spent-millions-on-payroll-zero-on-research-report/

https://cancerletter.com/news-analysis/20201116_1/

“The initiative will focus on improving data standards, and giving patients some mechanism to share their data so they can help many other patients going through the same fight, so researchers can use data to find new patterns and new answers, working with community care organizations help improve access to quality care so outcomes aren’t wholly dictated by the patient’s ZIP code, convening a national conversation with the pharmaceutical companies, insurers, biotech companies and others to ensure patients can actually access the treatments that become available and as are needed,” Biden said at the time (The Cancer Letter, April 7, 2017).

So the reason it didn't give out grants is because it's not suppose to.  It wasn't made to give out grants.

[Action80]

It would be helpful if gary was able to definitively post the exact funding being cut.

Maybe he is not able to define it because the funding was not specifically directed to "cancer research."

[Tom Bishop]

So the reason it didn't give out grants is because it's not suppose to.  It wasn't made to give out grants.

I understand that they have a disclaimer that they don't actually use the money for cancer research, but this is at odds with their mission statement:

The Biden Cancer Initiative was founded in 2017 by the former vice president and his wife, Jill Biden, to “develop and drive implementation of solutions to accelerate progress in cancer prevention, detection, diagnosis, research and care and to reduce disparities in cancer outcomes,” according to its IRS mission statement. But it gave out no grants in its first two years, and spent millions on the salaries of former Washington, DC, aides it hired.

Apparently "develop and drive implementation of solutions to accelerate progress in cancer prevention, detection, diagnosis, research and care" means paying themselves and their friends hundreds of thousands of dollars each to hold some conferences and suggest that other cancer organizations do better.

The organization was open for about two years and then suddenly closed to avoid the appearance of impropriety.

https://fortune.com/2019/07/15/joe-biden-cancer-initiative/

The Vermont-based institute said it would stop accepting donations and suspend all operations by the end of May “so there could not even be an appearance of impropriety,” Jane Sanders said.

It is rather odd that a totally legitimate organization would just close its doors like that and interrupt such important progress.

[Lord Dave]

So the reason it didn't give out grants is because it's not suppose to.  It wasn't made to give out grants.

I understand that they have a disclaimer that they don't actually use the money for cancer research, but this is at odds with their mission statement:

The Biden Cancer Initiative was founded in 2017 by the former vice president and his wife, Jill Biden, to “develop and drive implementation of solutions to accelerate progress in cancer prevention, detection, diagnosis, research and care and to reduce disparities in cancer outcomes,” according to its IRS mission statement. But it gave out no grants in its first two years, and spent millions on the salaries of former Washington, DC, aides it hired.

Apparently "develop and drive implementation of solutions to accelerate progress in cancer prevention, detection, diagnosis, research and care" means paying themselves and their friends hundreds of thousands of dollars each to hold some conferences and suggest that other organizations do better.

The organization was open for about two years and then siddenly closed to avoid the appearance of impropriety.

https://fortune.com/2019/07/15/joe-biden-cancer-initiative/

The Vermont-based institute said it would stop accepting donations and suspend all operations by the end of May “so there could not even be an appearance of impropriety,” Jane Sanders said.

It is rather odd that a totally legitimate organization would just close its doors like that and interrupt such important progress.

What's so confusing?
It's goal is to organize with other groups so they can work better, together. 

As for closing: makes sense.  Don't want your president to have his name on a business or charity while president.  Right?

[AATW]

some idiot nazi cosplayer

Saw Stephen Fry tell a good joke about this - which I think he said wasn't his:
"Of course Elon Musk isn't a Nazi.
The Nazis made good cars"

 

[Action80]

NIH says cuts to 'administrative overhead' will save taxpayers billions
“Government work is inherently not mission-focused,” Early said. “There are cases where it is, but it is inherently not. So, that's like a big strategic change. And associated with that, the budgeting needs to change, too. There's some 28 different agencies within NIH, and each of them has their own little budget. And each of them has their little justifications for it. ... There are a couple cases where we've got strategic objectives. One’s around reducing cancer, and the other is around reducing AIDS. But the one on cancer in particular is very poorly articulated. And they have absolutely no plans for how they're going to execute it, because they are just going to do research, and it will happen. There is no strategic plan on how to get there. And the plans that are there are totally misdirected, because they're invested in such things as diversity, inclusion and that sort of nonsense that doesn't actually contribute to the outcomes.”

I have applied for grants.

I always had to justify why I needed the money, what I was going to do with the money, how long it would be before anything tangible was accomplished, and file documentation concerning steps taken along the way.

I think the NIH has failed these steps numerous times.

[Lord Dave]

NIH says cuts to 'administrative overhead' will save taxpayers billions
“Government work is inherently not mission-focused,” Early said. “There are cases where it is, but it is inherently not. So, that's like a big strategic change. And associated with that, the budgeting needs to change, too. There's some 28 different agencies within NIH, and each of them has their own little budget. And each of them has their little justifications for it. ... There are a couple cases where we've got strategic objectives. One’s around reducing cancer, and the other is around reducing AIDS. But the one on cancer in particular is very poorly articulated. And they have absolutely no plans for how they're going to execute it, because they are just going to do research, and it will happen. There is no strategic plan on how to get there. And the plans that are there are totally misdirected, because they're invested in such things as diversity, inclusion and that sort of nonsense that doesn't actually contribute to the outcomes.”

I have applied for grants.

I always had to justify why I needed the money, what I was going to do with the money, how long it would be before anything tangible was accomplished, and file documentation concerning steps taken along the way.

I think the NIH has failed these steps numerous times.

And Trump needed Elon musk to find this out, why?
This is shit the director, who Trump appointed should be doing.  Just removing things that don't fit Trump's adgenda.  And that's fine.  That's normal.  But why have Musk do it?

[Action80]

Why not?

If I was a newly appointed director and somebody had cleaned a bunch of shit out of the operations of the agency prior to my arrival, I would be grateful.

[garygreen]

so again i will ask -- even if these demonstrably false claims about fraud and waste were accurate, why is it better to have no cancer research and no fraud than to have cancer research + some fraud? why is it better for people to die from cancer just to save a couple of bucks?

why should society lose access to alice's cancer research just because bob wasted some money going to a conference or whatever?

[Lord Dave]

Why not?

If I was a newly appointed director and somebody had cleaned a bunch of shit out of the operations of the agency prior to my arrival, I would be grateful.

Political bias and conflict of interest.


Let's put it this way:
What if Biden asked Hunter to do this back in 2021.  Would you have trusted the results?

[Action80]

Conflict of interest?

Where? Out in left field? Out of the park?

Come on, man!

Nobody gives a fuck about whataboutism.

I will write that Musk provides regular updates about his activities on X. He was also responsible for filing the appropriate documents covering issues relating to conflict of interest and reports all of his activities directly to the president.

Hunter was too busy grifting for Hairy Legs and misplacing his coke in the White House.

[Action80]

gary, still waiting for you to specifically identify which grants the NIH is no longer going to receive.

Curious you have not identified that, nor have you indicated research regarding the curing of cancer is actually going to stop.

I think the writing is more akin to Henny Penny.

[Lord Dave]

Conflict of interest?

Where? Out in left field? Out of the park?

Come on, man!

Nobody gives a fuck about whataboutism.

I will write that Musk provides regular updates about his activities on X. He was also responsible for filing the appropriate documents covering issues relating to conflict of interest and reports all of his activities directly to the president.

Hunter was too busy grifting for Hairy Legs and misplacing his coke in the White House.

SpaceX does alot of business with the government and who owns SpaceX?


Yes, I am aware.  Musk is performing an audit with a gotcha by gotcha on social media.  Certainly not for likes or publicity. >_>


Yes, reporting all his activities to his "friend" and the person he spent alot of money on.  He financed Trump's campaign, ya know.  Kinda like he bought Trump....and oh hey, now he has full access to the department computer systems to do with as he pleases.  And has thus far used $7 million on a database query which seems to only find things during Biden's administration.  Or things that sound bad until you realize it's normal shit like coffee or NYT subscriptions for resale.  But the details, somehow, are never mentioned.
He didn't even say that Sesame Street in Iraq cost $1.5 million over 3 years. Just the $1.5 million.  Why?


And for fun here's the link to the project page from Sesame Workshop
https://sesameworkshop.org/our-work/middle-east-and-north-africa/

[garygreen]

for some reason i thought this was limited to cancer research, but it's a funding cap for all NIH grants. that's absolute fucking insanity.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mad.280590/gov.uscourts.mad.280590.1.0.pdf

lol yeah let's (illegally) cut billions of dollars of spending on medical research and clinical trials and community health funding all because captain k-hole doesn't have a fucking clue how grants work.

[honk]

https://www.newsweek.com/republicans-reveal-trump-tax-plan-will-cost-us-45-trillion-2030024

It's all about fiscal responsibility, guys. Reducing government waste, managing the national debt, and giving the extremely wealthy more enormous tax cuts.

[Pete Svarrior]

so again i will ask -- even if these demonstrably false claims about fraud and waste were accurate, why is it better to have no cancer research and no fraud than to have cancer research + some fraud? why is it better for people to die from cancer just to save a couple of bucks?

why should society lose access to alice's cancer research just because bob wasted some money going to a conference or whatever?

[Action80]

Yes, gary, continue your quite evident concern for people dying! [/sarcasm]

The NIH is a complete waste of taxpayer dollars in its current form, as are most other government agencies.

The audits will continue, the bureaucrats responsible for fraud will be removed and held responsible, and order will be the goal.

You are better off taking this shitshow of posts to AR or CN.

[Lord Dave]

Yes, gary, continue your quite evident concern for people dying! [/sarcasm]

The NIH is a complete waste of taxpayer dollars in its current form, as are most other government agencies.

The audits will continue, the bureaucrats responsible for fraud will be removed and held responsible, and order will be the goal.

You are better off taking this shitshow of posts to AR or CN.

Has anyone found fraud?  Or is it just a list of things the right doesn't like?