The National Institutes of Health do plenty of admirable work in the field of health research, but every once in a while they undertake a project that can charitably be described as being of "questionable" importance. Last month, OhMyGov! explored one such project. Now, it turns out this may be a recurring feature.

NIH recently agreed to provide researchers at Indiana University's Kinsey Institute with a $423,500 grant to look into the mysterious conundrum of why men don't like wearing condoms. According to Fox News, the two-year study will investigate why "young, heterosexual adult men" have problems using condoms and include a "skill based intervention" to better teach these men how to properly use condoms. Where is Joycelyn Elders when you need her?

According to an abstract by Drs. Erick Janssen and Stephanie Sanders, the project will aim to "understand the relationship between condom application and loss of erections and decreased sensation, including the role of condom skills and performance anxiety, and to find new ways to improve condom use among those who experience such problems." Yes that's right, $423,500 to figure out why wearing a piece of latex "down there" may decrease sensitivity.

Predictably this project is not without its vehement detractors or defenders. Among the former is David Williams, vice president for policy at Citizens Against Government Waste. "The government is so out of whack with what the priorities are that this actually makes sense that we'd be wasting money on a condom study," Williams told Fox News. "I don't think they should have any delusions of grandeur that what they're doing is going to change behavior and that it's really going to fundamentally change the way men and women get together."

Responding to criticisms, Dr. Janssen told Fox that the study "addresses important public health concerns in the U.S. and is the first study to test claims about arousal and sensation loss in a controlled scientific environment." He went on to describe how the research will focus on 500 male subjects aged 18-24. Only 120 of these subjects will move beyond the first part of the study (a simple question and answer session) to the laboratory phase.

According to Dr. Janssen, the second half of the study will include neurological exams and "test an instructional method on the correct and consistent use of condoms." Yes, you read that right, a publicly funded study into the proper use of condoms. Apparently "water balloon fight" is not an officially recognized medical use.

OhMyGov! has looked at some of the NIH's questionable expenditures in the past, so the idea of a spectacularly expensive publicly-funded study of a seemingly obvious hypothesis is nothing new here. At first glance asking "Why don't men like condoms?" seems about as dumb a question as "Why do prostitutes get AIDS?," but that hasn't stopped the NIH before. It makes you wonder if a billion dollar study into where babies come from is too far off. (Hypothesis: it has to do with misused condoms.)

No one is questioning whether or not the NIH does legitimately good work in the field of health research on the behalf of the public good, nor is anyone questioning whether or not the staff at the Kinsey Institute should continue their research into human sexuality. Both the NIH and the Kinsey Institute are organizations that have provided the public with invaluable amounts of information regarding health and wellness. The fact remains however that the NIH spends $29 billion in taxpayer money each year to conduct their research, a massive investment that should produce results.

The NIH spends huge sums on research into diseases like cancer in the name of the greater good; this current research does not belong on that same level. At a time when the federal government is spending huge sums of money just to keep some of the country's most well known financial and manufacturing institutions afloat, half a million dollars on condom research is probably something that can wait. Besides, it isn't like the researchers aren't going to learn anything they couldn't find out by hanging out on Frat Row on a Thursday night.

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