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Drug dealers and users will learn how to distribute anti-overdose medicine and HIV prevention drugs to their customers and romantic partners with the help of a $750K Columbia University study funded by taxpayers.
The Department of Health and Human Services awarded the $753,286 grant to the Ivy League university’s trustees, according to public records. The study runs through 2028. The award is administered through the National Institute on Drug Abuse under HHS and is categorized under the federal assistance listing for drug use and addiction research programs.
The program specifically will study “Latinx people who use and sell drugs.”
“People who sell drugs are not typically engaged by public health interventions and have limited access to health services,” the grant summary states.
Drug dealers are good for navigating the “open-air narcotics markets” because “they interact sexually with all these populations and also often use drugs and are at risk of HIV.”
The dealers will learn about naloxone and PrEP, a medicine that reduces the risk of contracting HIV.
The HHS did not respond to two emailed requests for comment in the past month. Since The Fix first reached out, the federal government has doled out nearly $6,000 of the grant. Prior to the money being spent, The Fix asked HHS and the research team whether the lack of outlays reflects a delay, a review process, or another administrative issue.
It is possible the grant was frozen due to the Department of Government efficiency or faced delays because of the federal shutdown in November of last year. However, the official start date listed is August 15, 2025.
Columbia also did not respond to requests for comment on the study. Do No Harm, a medical watchdog group, also declined to comment.
However, a government transparency group criticized the decision to have university researchers get involved instead of more appropriate experts.
“This kind of grantmaking may be aimed at public health outcomes, but another end would be keeping risky and illegal behaviors more tenable,” Open the Books told The Fix.
The study specifically will take place in the Kensington neighborhood of Brooklyn
“The conditions described in Kensington demand attention from law enforcement and public health officials now, not a long-term study about ways to avoid fatal results,” Open the Books told The Fix.
The study plans to divide HIV-negative participants into two groups. One would receive information on “peer navigation” and PrEP through multiple sessions while others would receive just one session of training.
The researchers plan to pursue future studies “at a large scale,” according to the grant summary.
The Trump administration’s spending on a small, identity-politics based study follows a similar pattern as his predecessor.
The Biden HHS spent hundreds of millions of dollars on racism and medicine studies, as The Fix previously reported.
Louisiana State University, for example, won money for a study titled “Black Hazardous Drinkers: Ecological Momentary Assessment of Racial/Ethnic Microaggressions.”
The study would look at the role microaggressions play in “hazardous drinking” by “Black individuals.”
Another study from Columbia University looked at “Epigenomic Pathways from Racism to Preterm Birth.” The study will “examine the multilevel (the interaction of individual and structural) racism… to determine if racism explains the excess [preterm birth] observed in [non-Hispanic] Black and Hispanic women.”
MORE: Taxpayers gave Northwestern U. $3.3 million for ‘safe space ambassadors’
