But the agency still defends the tests as necessary for public policy — yet another illegal rationale.
Earlier, we reported that EPA had illegally intentionally used children as young as 10-years old as guinea pigs in pseudoscientific experiments on the health effects of diesel exhaust particles.
In response to our charges, EPA defended the experiment in part as follows:
A spokesperson also tried to clarify the EPA’s position on diesel that the research would help put the EPA “in a better position to understand and combat the problem” of sickness caused by pollution.
First, even EPA has since determined that such experiments are wrong. How do we know? Because in 2006 EPA made experimenting on children illegal. From the Code of Federal Regulations (40 CFR 26.203):[Click to enlarge image]
And although these experiments likely occurred prior to the effective date of the ban (June 23, 2006), EPA had proposed to ban experiments on children on May 7, 2003 — MORE THAN ONE YEAR BEFORE THE RESEARCHERS APPLIED FOR PERMISSION TO CONDUCT THE EXPERIMENT. In fact, when EPA finally banned child experimentation, it noted that it cut short the normal rule making process stating:
EPA is publishing this direct final rule without prior proposal because the Agency believes that these amendments are non-controversial and does not expect to receive adverse comments.
Moreover, it is also illegal to justify human testing on the basis that the human guinea pigs are helping to establish public policy (40 CFR 26.111(a)(2): [Click image to enlarge]
Can’t wait for EPA’s next dodge.
When did the pertinent IRB(s) justify the studies based on public policy (re: 40 CFR 26.111)? If EPA administrators are blanket-banned from using such a rationale, the cited legislation doesn’t do it. Moreover, most anything the EPA chooses to do is toward, or justified in light of, public policy – as that’s kinda their modus operundi.
The EPA defense-quotation from the vice.com article might not have been intended to apply to the studies with children (vs the ones with adults). Only one sentence and a phrase in the paragraph was a direct quotation, leaving open issues of context and what was actually said in full by the official. All that the reader knows for sure is that the EPA disagreed with their opponent’s characterization of the research (which can be expected).
In any case, hurrah for the banning of child testing!
It is worse than this Junk Science discovered. Not only are politicians and medical professionals not interested in unlawful experiments using humans without informed consent but the very taxpayer funded US government agency whose mission is to protect human subjects, refuses to investigate any claims about such illegal practices. The Office of Human Subject Protection demands that human subjects provide evidence of wrongdoing. They want to know who the principle researcher is. But if the experiments is being conducted without consent how can the human subjects know who is doing it? For example. This abuse is institutionalized historically. There are a few books about some egregious abuses. Ewan Cameron at McGill funded by the CIA. Michael D’Antonio’s book State Boys Rebellion about the MIT experiments for Quaker Oats, performed on institutionalized young men at the Fernald State School in Waltham MA.
It is worse than this J.D. Dunn discovered. Not only are politicians and medical professionals not interested in unlawful experiments using humans without informed consent but the very taxpayer funded US government agency whose mission is to protect human subjects, refuses to investigate any claims about such illegal practices. The Office of Human Subject Protection demands that human subjects provide evidence of wrongdoing. They want to know who the principle researcher is. But if the experiments is being conducted without consent how can the human subjects know who is doing it? For example. This abuse is institutionalized historically. There are a few books about some egregious abuses. Ewan Cameron at McGill funded by the CIA. Michael D’Antonio’s book State Boys Rebellion about the MIT experiments for Quaker Oats, performed on institutionalized young men at the Fernald State School in Waltham MA.
The EPA stinks.