When is someone going to bring a modicum of sanity to NIH grants! This is a waste of taxpayer dollars and why am I not surprised that the word “Memphis” showed up.

U.S. Spends $1 Million Researching Syrians ‘Hooked on Hookahs’

For the last several years, U.S. taxpayers have spent more than $1 million to fund research on waterpipes and waterpipe use in studies being conducted at the Syrian Center for Tobacco Study, in Aleppo, Syria.

“We’ve done some studies in Syria just looking at the prevalence of it in the general population, and in average groups like college students,” researcher Ken Ward of the University of Memphis Department of Health and Sport Sciences, told CNSNews.com.

Ward and his associates in Syria have received a number of grants from the federal National Institutes of Health (NIH) over the years for research on waterpipes – $21,000 for a project that ended in 2007; $326,000 in 2006 to establish the Syrian Center for Tobacco Study; $334,000 for center projects in 2004; and $438,000 in 2005.

Mr. Ward and NIH, just in case you aren’t aware, Syria is our ENEMY and a supporter of terrorism against the US. I don’t care what hokey hookah research study you invent, don’t aid and abet our enemies. Absurdity run amok.