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Medical reform expert finds the research design problematic
The National Institutes of Health funded tens of thousands of dollars in taxpayer money for a study looking at Indigenous Two-Spirit/LGBTQ people with and without HIV, also known as “2S/LGBTQ+ PLWH.”
The research team says it plans to “deepen understanding of intersectional health disparities, informing culturally appropriate interventions such as intergenerational healing workshops that may be leveraged to promote health and wellness among Indigenous 2S/LGBTQ+ PLWH.”
Other goals include a qualitative exploration of “healthy aging indicators and Indigenous cultural generativity among a subset of Indigenous 2S/LGBTQ with and without HIV.”
The researchers will “conduct in-depth interviews with between 15-20 Indigenous 2S/LGBTQ+ PLWH to illicit perspectives on aging trajectories and what it means to age well to understand how participants make sense of their experiences and the world by interpreting the stories they tell.” The researchers misspelled “illicit” when they presumably meant “elicit.”
Professor Chase Bryer at the University of Hawaii won the nearly $70,000 grant.
The College Fix emailed Bryer on September 29 and later sent a follow-up email on October 2. The Fix asked Bryer what he hopes to learn from the study and if he faced any pushback for this project given the Trump administration’s critical stance against DEI, but he did not respond.
A research director for a medical reform group criticized the study in an emailed statement to The Fix.
Ian Kingsbury from Do No Harm, criticized the “enormous intellectual dissonance in this project,” saying “The researchers fail to acknowledge that advancements in HIV treatment benefiting LGBTQ patients were entirely thanks to Western medicine.”
“Treating spirituality or ‘indigenous ways of knowing’ as a lens for disease treatment is unscientific and unacceptable,” Kingsbury stated.
He also criticized the “tiny sample size and faulty research design.”
The National Institutes of Health should have different priorities, Kingsbury told The Fix.
Their priorities should include “focus on research into innovative medical treatments that are unlikely to be funded in the private sector.”
“That mission represents the best hope for meaningful scientific advancement and the least risk of ideological corruption,” he said.
The Fix asked Kingsbury for an explanation of why the current administration would fund a study with such clear ideological aims.
Kingsbury offered the possible explanation that “the Trump administration has made a good faith effort to address reckless, ideological spending at the NIH.”
He continued:
Unfortunately, there are constraints that make it impossible to determine how this particular project was able to get funded. We are confident that appropriate steps will be taken to address and rectify the funding of this project and any others like it.
A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from putting its own priorities into place when it comes to NIH funding, including on issues of gender ideology and HIV research. The lawsuit, GLMA v. NIH, is currently pending.
The Fix previously reported that the NIH under Trump has funded a study researching “gender minority people” with the focus on “elucidate how social support and medical care contribute to the mental health trajectories of SGM birthing people throughout the perinatal period.”
The Fix has also reported that Trump’s NIH continues to fund a study for “underrepresented” doctors from fiscal years 2022 to 2027. The study aims to apply an “antiracism” framework to “addresses health disparities and advances health equity.”
MORE: Certainly no DEI here! (Cartoon)
