In response to yesterday’s Washington Times report by Kerry Picket (“Lawsuit filed against EPA over pollution experiments on humans“), the EPA e-mailed Picket:
EPA is one of 15 federal departments and agencies that conduct or support research with human subjects under the governance of the Common Rule. All human exposure studies conducted by EPA scientists are independently evaluated for safety and ethics, and the results are peer-reviewed. The complaint has been referred to the Department of Justice and further inquiry regarding litigation should be directed to them. [Emphasis added]
The alleged “independent” safety and ethics evaluation is conducted by the University of North Carolina (UNC) for EPA on a contract basis.
In addition to UNC being an EPA contractor (ka-ching), the EPA extramural grants database indicates that the EPA has given UNC $33,602,103 for 92 projects (ka-ching,ka-ching).
UNC documents indicate that UNC received from EPA $8,252,644.45 in 2004; $4,586,728.98 in 2005; $8,884,433.00 in 2006; and $5,696,188.32 in 2010. Documents for other years could not be found.
As EPA might sing to the “independent” UNC… don’t rock the boat, baby.
UNC’s reputation for integrity has been a bit sullied as of late. Two people in the African Studies Department just “retired” because of questionable “classes” given athletes. Two fund raisers just resigned over ethics. The football team is on an NCAA penalty. The Chancellor just resigned. (Of course he goes back to an endowed chair in Chemistry with a paid year off to “adjust.”) Good luck
Eric Holder was just cleared of any wrong doings related to Fast And Furious by the Justice Dept. If the matter of human testing is directed to the Justice Department of our government does anyone really think there will be ANY judgement against the EPA?
Obama has found Eric Holder to be very reliable, and somewhat practiced, in handling messes handed to Justice Dept.
Well, you guys have tangled with the EPA before. You know they’re going to run from this. Keep up the fight! This baby has legs!
Reblogged this on Climate Ponderings.
Notice how everything that this Administration wants hidden ends up in a DOJ investigation, never to be seen again? If IG’s get it, they are denied information. Special prosecutors are never appointed.