Newly released documents revealed that the Center for Tobacco Products health equity advisor spent tens of thousands on a trip to Edinburgh for an LGBT tobacco workshop.

(Washington, DC) — $60,000 is a lot of money. For many Americans, it’s their entire year’s salary or even more. $60,000 is lifechanging money, and when spent by bureaucrats, it supposedly is to be used properly to serve Americans.

That, or the government could spend it on sending Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials to Edinburgh, Scotland for a workshop on the “stigma” facing LGBTQ+ people in the field of tobacco research. And that’s just what we got when the Biden administration approved said trip for Dr. Charlene Le Fauve, the Center for Tobacco Products’ (CTP) first — and likely last — senior advisor for health equity.

The Functional Government Initiative (FGI) obtained documents via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) detailing the March 2024 trip for Le Fauve and 11 of her colleagues, including then CTP Director Brian King, who has since been let go, that carried an “estimated” total cost of $60,000. Le Fauve justified her attendance at the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco by claiming “the knowledge gained at the meeting is critical to attendees’ ability to understand emerging scientific issues that may impact their work and their ability to effectively move forward agency initiatives.”

And what “knowledge” was “gained” from this hyper-expensive work vacation on the taxpayer’s dime? A report of questionable value to a workshop that covered issues such as “how anti-LGBTQ+ legislation and discriminatory and stigmatizing environments toward LGBTQ+ populations impact tobacco use and tobacco control research” and “the challenges of conducting research on tobacco use in the high-stigma environment of pregnancy in a post-Dobbs era.”

This is just another example of the egregious misuse of taxpayer dollars by the Biden administration to advance radical diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and LGBTQ+ agenda items.

Of course, CTP spent money on this trip that has no discernible value to the agency’s core mission, on which the agency has been failing. This trip didn’t help approve a single application for products that could reduce harm, nor did it stop one shipment of illegal Chinese products. Only government dysfunction can waste that much money.

Roderick Law, spokesman for FGI, issued the following statement:

“I, like anyone else in the world, would love to have a $60,000 vacation paid for by my employer. Sadly, this dream became reality for 12 people on the taxpayer’s back. How can a group of government officials spend $60,000 on an LGBTQ+ workshop? How is it possible that this trip helped the agency stop illegal Chinese-made products or process applications for new products that could provide for harm reduction? This kind of waste should never happen again.”

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