Waste of the Day: Throwback Thursday – U.S. Pays to Study Jordanian Hookah

Topline: Have you ever wondered how common water pipe tobacco smoking is among college students in Jordan?

The NIH did a study on Jordan hookah?

Probably not, but the National Institutes of Health still spent $170,000 to find out in a 2011 study. The money would be worth over $243,000 today. 

That’s according to the “Wastebook” reporting published by the late U.S. Senator Dr. Tom Coburn. For years, these reports shined a white-hot spotlight on federal frauds and taxpayer abuses. 

Coburn, the legendary U.S. Senator from Oklahoma, earned the nickname “Dr. No” by stopping thousands of pork-barrel projects using the Senate rules. Projects that he couldn’t stop, Coburn included in his oversight reports.   

Coburn’s Wastebook 2011 included 100 examples of outrageous spending worth nearly $7 billion, including the money to bum a smoke in the Middle East.

Key facts: The study was led by the Jordan University of Science and Technology in collaboration with Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of Pittsburgh.

A trained interviewer gave surveys to students at four Jordanian colleges to find out whether factors like gender or income made young adults more likely to use water pipe tobacco, or hookah. The study found that tobacco use was slightly more common among men but was “relatively constant across most sociodemographic variables.”

Funding came from the NIH’s Fogarty International Center, which exists to strengthen U.S. partnerships with foreign health researchers and train the next generation of health scientists around the world. It had $95 million in funding in 2024.

Shut that spigot down

This February, Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX) introduced a bill that would shut down the Fogarty International Center. Gill argued in a press release that the Center duplicates the international research of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease and funds questionable studies, such as one called “Stigma Reduction and Gender Affirmation to Promote HIV Prevention Testing in Trans Women.”

President Donald Trump’s 2026 budget request also calls for eliminating the Center. Trump previously tried to shutter the program in 2018.

Search all federal, state and local salaries and vendor spending with the world’s largest government spending database at OpenTheBooks.com. 

Summary: There’s nothing wrong with building international relationships, but studying foreign smoking habits might be beyond the original purpose of the Fogarty Center.

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.

This article was originally published by RealClearInvestigations and made available via RealClearWire.