McLean County Times

We first exposed a questionable survey being sent out by Illinois State University in this article. After obtaining numerous documents related to the grant and applications for this project, it appears the public is not only on the hook for $1,338,560 but the purpose of the survey appears to be a bait and switch.

According to the IDPH records, the purpose is:

“Purpose. DPH has partnered with ISU, School of Social Work, to complete an estimated population survey. This study is novel in that It relies on primary data collection methods to assess the size of the MSM and PWID populations in Illinois more accurately and to describe their demographic characteristics beyond what is captured in public health HIV surveillance data.”

The records indicate MSM stands for men who have sex with men, and PWID stands for people who inject drugs.

Anyone reading the actual survey can quickly identify the inconsistency with the alleged purpose.  If the goal was to gather information on men who have sex with men, why on earth do they not instruct the person filling out to the survey to actually be a man who has sex with other men?  They also do not focus on actual injected drug users as their base.

According to the survey information distributed, they want the youngest adult in the household who is over 18 to fill out the survey.

“Your address was randomly selected among all addresses in the State of Illinois. To be eligible to participate, you must be aged 18 years of age or older and live in Illinois. Please select the youngest adult in your household to complete the survey. You are ineligible to participate if you are currently within the European Economic Area.”

If the goal was to actually seek MSM and PWID, wouldn’t it make more sense to seek those in a household who fit those criteria?  A red flag in the above criteria is they are seeking the “youngest” adult to fill out the information. Considering the actual survey has an age range selection as one of the questions, it makes no sense to instruct the recipients to have the youngest person fill out the survey.

The questions of the survey point to gender identity and sexual choices gathering.  Seeking a person’s sexual identity and sexual habits, outside of the claimed goal to identify MSM, is a red flag which appears to indicate the state is using your tax dollars for things well outside the claimed purpose.

We asked the ISU representative several questions however they have not answered a single communication.

We submitted multiple Freedom of Information Act requests to both Illinois State University and the Illinois Department of Public Health. The responses are rather interesting.  Both entities provided the signed agreement, however, ISU chose to redact information that was not exempt while IDPH did not redact that information.

Comparing the two agreements it appears ISU has concerns with telling the public the agreement is about HIV infection, spread, prevention, and surveillance data. While we take no issue with such a survey, we find it concerning that the actual questions are clearly targeted to gather information that has little to do with the intended goal of the project regarding MSM.

IDPH provided agreement (highlighted portions indicate what ISU redacted)

ISU provided agreement

Stay tuned for further disclosure as to the cost details to the taxpayers for this survey.