JunkScience asks National Academy of Sciences to investigate corruption of EPA human experiments review

NAS President Marcia McNutt… the ball is now in your court.

April 11, 2017

Dr. Marcia McNutt
President
National Academy of Sciences
500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001

Dear Dr. McNutt,

I am writing to request that you conduct a bona fide, thorough and transparent investigation of conflicts-of-interest and corruption among the members of the National Research Council’s (NRC) Board of Board of Environmental Science and Technology (BEST) and related committee concerning the recently completed project, “Assessing Toxicological Risks to Human Subjects Used in Controlled Exposure Studies of Air Pollutants” (DELS-BEST-14-05).

On behalf of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the BEST recently completed what amounts to nothing less than a whitewash of the EPA’s patently illegal program of experimenting on humans with substances the EPA considers lethal air pollutants.

A summary of the facts is as follows:

  • The EPA quietly hired the NRC to review an embarrassing report from the EPA’s own Office of Inspector General about the EPA’s illegal program of human experimentation.
  • The NRC implemented the review through the BEST, two-thirds of whose members are former EPA officials or grantees.
  • The BEST, in turn, quietly formed a committee with little to no expertise on air pollutants or human experiments to conduct a covert review.
  • The committee conducted its review with no input other than from EPA staff until I inadvertently learned of the review after it had basically been completed.
  • Although the committee was pressured into reopening the review to take testimony from several of my colleagues and I, the committee’s final report entirely ignored and failed to address the documented evidence of the EPA’s undeniable wrongdoing we presented.
  • Accordingly, the committee came to the nonsensical conclusion that EPA may continue experimenting on elderly and sick people with air pollutants the EPA’s considers to be acutely lethal.

Information further elaborating and supporting the above summary is attached. Although the BEST and the committee are well aware of these allegations, neither has sought to defend itself in public.

I am asking you to determine how the EPA was able to corrupt the NAS/NRC into producing a predetermined and nonsensical outcome. This investigation should include: (1) sworn depositions from all those involved, and (2) a report to the public, including recommendations for appropriate disciplinary action.

For your information, outstanding Freedom of Information Act requests may very well prove to be quite embarrassing to the NAS and its members. Please get ahead of the situation by conducting the requested review as soon as possible.

Thank you for your attention.

Sincerely,

/s/

Steve Milloy
Publisher

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