$500,000 'to turn monkeys transgender': Watchdog trashes government spendingwashingtonexaminer

July 02, 2022 04:20 PM

Watchdog group American Transparency is not pleased with how the government is monkeying around with taxpayer dollars.

In a review of federal discretionary spending over the past two years, the group discovered a number of federally funded projects such as studies on zombified cats, toilet cameras, and gambling pigeons. Here is a look at some of its most striking findings from the group's annual Where’s The Pork report.

$477,121 on transgender monkeys
A grant from the National Institutes of Health funded research that involved injecting male monkeys with hormones intended to transform them into female monkeys. The goal of the study was to examine the prevalence of HIV in transgender women: biological males who identify as female. Most of the monkeys used for the experiment were male rhesus macaques, according to a description for the study.

"Sadly, [transgender women] have some of the highest concentrated HIV epidemics in the world, with a pooled global prevalence of 19% and a 49-fold higher odds ratio of acquiring HIV than non-transgender adults," the description read.

Researchers noted that estradiol is one of the most common hormones given during gender transitions, and they said they sought to figure out whether that hormone could make people more susceptible to HIV infection. The funding was awarded in the 2021 and 2022 fiscal years, according to the Where’s The Pork report.

$465,339 on gambling pigeons
The government made a bet on a study out of Reed College in Portland, Oregon, that entailed trying to teach pigeons to gamble via slot machines. It is not immediately clear how participants in the study were able to goad the pigeons into gambling. Researchers hoped to gain insights into behavioral economics and conceded the study would focus more on "laboratory models rather than practical applications," per the project's description.