Government Spends Nearly $2.7 Million to Study Booze-Loving Lesbians

(Photo: Shutterstock/aboikis)

Last week it was reported that the National Institutes of Health had awarded approximately $1.5 million in grants to study how obesity and sexual orientation correlate -- particularly why lesbians are more likely to be overweight than gay men.  Apparently it was considered an issue of “high public-health significance."

Now, CNS News adds that the National Institutes of Health have awarded roughly $2.7 million to study why lesbians are more prone to "hazardous drinking" as part of a separate study, at a different institution.

CNS News explains:

The University of Illinois has received grants since 2009 for its project, "Cumulative Stress and Hazardous Drinking in a Community of Adult Lesbians," which aims to develop “culturally sensitive” strategies to prevent lesbians from being drunks.

“Studies using both probability and nonprobability samples provide ample evidence of lesbians' vulnerability to hazardous drinking,” the grant’s description reads. “However, very little is known about the factors that increase lesbians' risk for hazardous drinking.”

“We propose to build on and extend our study of sexual identity and drinking… to model effects of cumulative stress on hazardous drinking among lesbians.”

The researchers theorize that lesbians report higher rates of traumatic events, making them more likely to engage in hazardous drinking, which has been defined by NIH’s National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism as “more than 7 drinks per week or more than 3 drinks per occasion for women.”  [Emphasis added]

Here's a screen shot of the 2012 overview, via the NIH website:

(Photo: National Institutes of Health)

But if you click on the "history" tab, you can see just how much the taxpayer has spent studying the drinking habits of lesbians at the University of Illinois:

(Photo: National Institutes of Health)

But according to CNS News, this isn't all the government has spent on this topic:

The University of Illinois is not alone in receiving federal funds to study “sexual minorities” and their propensity to drink. The University of Washington has been awarded $1,154,445 since 2010 for its project “High Risk Drinking in Emerging Adult at-Risk Women,” which seeks to find out why young lesbians and bisexuals face an “elevated” chance for hazardous drinking.

Old Dominion University in 2012 received $446,056 for its study titled “Minority Stress, Alcohol Use, and Intimate Partner Violence Among Lesbians.”

The national debt of the United States is currently about $16.7 trillion.

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