EPA’s Federal Register announcement of the new PM2.5 air quality standards contains flat-out falsehoods about the agency’s human testing program.
A footnote on page 115 of the final rule states:
For example, the EPA excludes from its controlled human exposure studies involving exposure to PM2.5 any individual with a significant risk factor for experiencing adverse effects from such exposure. Thus, the EPA excludes a priori the following categories of persons: those with a history of angina, cardiac arrhythmias, and ischemic myocardial infarction or coronary bypass surgery; those with a cardiac pacemaker; those with uncontrolled hypertension (greater than 150 systolic and 90 diastolic); those with neurogenetive diseases; those with a history of bleeding diathesis; those taking betablockers; those using oral anticoagulants; those who are pregnant, attempting to become pregnant, or breastfeeding; those who have experienced a respiratory infection within four weeks of exposure; those experiencing eye or abdominal surgery within six weeks of exposure; those with active allergies; those with a history of chronic illnesses such as diabetes, cancer, rheumatologic diseases, immunodeficiency state, known cardiovascular disease, or chronic respiratory diseases; smokers. The EPA “Application for Independent Review Board Approval of Human Subjects Research: Cardiopulmonary Effects of healthy Older GSTM1 Null and Sufficient individuals to Concentrated Ambient Air Particles (CAPTAIN)”, Nov. 9, 2011, p. 9. [Emphasis added]
An example of the falsity of this assertion was reported yesterday in “EPA-funded University of Rochester researchers test deadly air pollutant on diabetics.” Documents also show that EPA researchers or EPA-funded researchers have experimented on asthmatics and people with heart disease. EPA-funded researchers at the University of Rochester apparently have experimented on patients recovering from heart attacks.
How arrogant is EPA? Despite that:
- The EPA is in litigation in federal court about the legality of its human experimentation;
- Its Inspector General is investigating the agency at the request of Congress;
- Sen. Inhofe has asked for a Senate hearing on the EPA experimentation;
- The North Carolina Medical Board is investigating several EPA physicians involved in the experimentation; and
- The University of North carolina is conducting a review of its involvement in the EPA experimentation,
the agency thinks it can get away with making blatantly false statements in the Federal Register.
There is no “Agency” involvement; there is only a coterie usurping federal agency power that the states should criminally punish.
More regulation without anyway for the public to change but to Vote. But even then, you have to change more then Congress because it does not effect the employees making the changes. This is going to be a long hard fight to get back to indiviual responsibility and thinking about others.
Of course the really amusing point is that, while the EPA has in fact used people in all those categories in experiments, the experiments still don’t reveal any short-term health effects from exposure to PM2.5.
PM2.5 is probably something to bring down to minimal levels and probably we’ve already done so in the US. When you can no longer find any plausible benefits, more costs are harmful because they divert resources that people could use to meet real needs or wants.
The Agency has committed blatant perjury before without reprisal aside from snarks on blogs. Why should this time be different?
Too true sadly.
“the agency thinks it can get away with making blatantly false statements in the Federal Register.”
That’s probably because it can. Eric Holder showed them how.