NIH Launches Study to Assess Bariatric Surgery in Adolescents

CHILD ABUSE alert!

Government funded and sanctioned child abuse by the NIH.

They lie simply to make get research dollars for their careers:

"'The reasons for weight gain are complex and multifactorial, influenced by genetics, environment, eating and physical activity habits, and society. The information gathered from Teen-LABS will help determine if adolescence is the best time to intervene with this surgical therapy,' says Thomas Inge, M.D., Ph.D., chair, Teen-LABS and principal investigator for the center at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center."

Only one thing and one thing only leads to overweight/obesity - too many Calories in, not enough out.

Need proof? Here is their own admission.

"'They will still need to eat less food and exercise more,' says Mary Horlick, M.D., project scientist for Teen-LABS and director of the Pediatric Clinical Obesity Program of the Division of Digestive Diseases and Nutrition, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), the sponsor of Teen-LABS at NIH."

Though participants have to pay for the surgery, the gov't still shells out your tax bucks.

"Teen-LABS will not pay for the costs of bariatric surgery or patient care."

But,

"Over the next five years, researchers will enroll 200 adolescents who are scheduled for bariatric surgery and compare their data to 200 adults who had bariatric surgery after being obese since their teen years. The researchers will collect information on the pre-operative and two year post-operative status of the participants, including measures of body composition, body fat, cardiovascular risks, sleep apnea episodes, diabetes indicators, depressive symptoms, quality of life, eating habits, and nutritional status. The investigators will also store serum, plasma, urine and genetic samples for future studies."

"LABS is funded at $3,000,000 per year for five years. There are also opportunities for investigators to apply for additional funding for ancillary studies through a request for applications (RFA). Information on the ancillary studies RFA can be found at: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-DK-03-022.html" (from: http://www.edc.pitt.edu/labs/Public/aboutus.html)

Why are they doing this, supposedly?

They "...hope to learn whether or not bariatric surgery is suitable for teens and if it will help them remain at a healthy weight over the long-term."

When they (correctly or incorrectly) find that it does, you can bet that there will be calls to subsidize costs.

At just under $31K a pop for the surgery's hospital charges alone and the number of fat kids growing, this solution is crazy expensive and abusive.

Better to find avenues that are cheaper and without mayhem. Then again, how will the researchers profit from that?

Stop the program. Stop paying for fat care. Stop entitlements for the calorically rich. Save the money. Stop the mutilation of kids.