The recent release of a study from Harvard that claims small particles as a major cause of lung cancer causes us to revisit the question of human exposure experiments. The Harvard researchers assert they found lung cancer in non smokers and it must be air pollution. They cannot, of course, eliminate papilloma virus or other causes, and eliminate other confounders, but no matter, they got some publicity and will get more funding.
Regular readers of this site know that Milloy and Dunn submitted Declarations in support of a lawsuit filed in Virginia Federal Court to stop human exposure experiments at the U of North Carolina School of Medicine by an EPA sponsored group, exposing paid volunteers to small particle pollution.
The Federal Court dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction, but the preliminary discovery showed that 10 US medical schools are doing the same types of human experiments.
Now Harvard reemphasizes the toxic, Carcinogenic nature of small particles, claimed on the basis of the typical data dredging epidemiology.
Either it is or it isn’t carcinogenic, and even if the EPA is lying about the carcinogenicity, any experimental subject now has to decide–did they lie to me or to the Congress about small particles.
Junk Science strikes again.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/28/us-air-pollution-idUSTRE79R5NM20111028
The idea of a class action lawsuit is very attractive. There are 10 admitted domestic Medical Schools that are now or have done human experiments, according to Cascio’s declaration under penalty of perjury.
All of those individuals have, at least one claim–the cancer and toxicity lethality threat asserted by EPA in congress would, if believed, make such experiments clearly a violation of the Nuremberg Code and other international rules on human experimentation/consent, but also the EPA has adopted the “Common Rule” that tracks with any reasonable interpretation of the codes, legal and moral, on human experimentation.
Incidentally, the conservatives in the North Carolina filed a bill to make unethical human experiments a felony–the pharma companies convinced them to drop it.
I do not think that civil or criminal prohibitions fail and that a proper criminal or civil action doesn’t require any more damn laws.
Milloy has not been able to get prosecutors in NC at Chapel Hill to consider actions against medical schools, kinda like the NC medical Board, which has many UNC medical alumni.
Tribal loyalty and politics trumps morality and rule of law. Just like Chicago or in the 3rd world where cousin loyalty prevails. Same in Australian Outback, jungle law, desert law, law in Washington DC, Chicago. corruption, slavery, evil have not disappeared, and the scandal of the Nazi human experiments doesn’t even make an impression on the Medical Board of No Carolina or Michigan.
I didn’t tell you here, but the web site has documented our discovery of a physician doing human experiments at U Michigan Med. Milloy went through the same thing and was rejected by U of MI dean of medicine, and the MI Board of Medicine, which said that unethical human experiments is not addressed by the Michigan Medical Practice statutes. Really.
So you think we are in a civilization, the product of the enlightenment and governed by morality and the rule of law. Or are we Bahgdad, or Kenya or Nigeria, or Egypt or commie countries where the state decided an ad hoc kind of morality/justice?
Lawsuit has already been filed on behalf of a person who had respiratory problems, was exposed at the UNC lab, and now has more problems.
All the other comments are sensible and i agree.
If you can find enough victims, you might get a class action suit. Lawyers, like everyone else, work mostly on the idea of large cash rewards for their work. Find one willing to risk big and maybe you can get somewhere. Problem is, more money can be made by suing companies for the stupid ways people use products than for actual malfeasance. Sad.
A simple end-around would be to find a test participant and have them file claiming personal harm due to exposure and being lied to about the dangers.
It is masochistic of me to be reviewing the satanic cult and day care center cases of community madness that flared up in the 1980s. But lawyers and government officials, including Janet Reno, believed all kinds of fantastic stories. In the Little Rascals case a little girl said very explicitly that Mr. Bob penetrated her, yet her hymen was intact. The ADA still pursued the rape change, as proof of actual penetration is not required.The correct conclusion would have been that the girl’s testimony is unreliable.
Mr. Milloy syllogism is spot on. If the ravages of air pollution are as claimed by the EPA, then deliberate exposure to air pollution is forbidden under international law Unnatural risk of death is a harm in itself. You can protest the storage of explosives in your neighbors garage before your being blown to death. There is something unsettling by the lack of reason in our courts.
Yet environMENTALists always seem to have standing.
As with many similar cases, I am reminded how “The State of California ‘Knows’ That the following thousands of substances CAUSE CANCER” even though they have only been proven to increase the likelihood in certain individuals and only when exposure levels are sufficient.
The other issue is the vast, vast expansion of the vague powers of the federal regulatory apparatus, thanks to our Congress (whom we all voted for). As I understand it, the restriction on standing, makes some sense. You can’t have anybody suing the government (which supposedly includes themselves) for doing something that is explicitly permitted, even if it harms them. But other than that???
Look, I’m no “stinkin'” lawyer, but whatever the technicalities of standing issues, there’s GOT to be someone/some group that is. Any legal types out there?
a follow up, that clarifies.
the federal court, in addition to declaring it didn’t have jurisdiction, also said that Schnare, Milloy and Dunn did not have standing to pursue an action against the EPA on human testing.
The court essentially declared there is no humane consideration and no standing for those who might protest unethical and immoral human experimentation, unless or until those individuals who protest can show a personal harm.
I would say that is another example of how courts, particularly federal courts that are inhabited by life term oligarchs, use standing as another excuse for refusing to hear cases.
Federal Courts are very liberal in their standing rulings for enviro advocacy groups, but if you aren’t on the approved list, you have no standing.
John Dunn