Posted on 09/25/2012 10:30:56 AM PDT by jazusamo
After accumulating evidence via the Freedom of Information Act that showed theEnvironmental Protection Agency conducted disturbing experiments that exposed humans to inhalable particulates the agency has said are deadly, sound science advocate Steven Milloy has sued the federal government.
The trials, which were carried out at EPA’s Human Studies Facility at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, exposed subjects to fine particulate matter (called “PM2.5”) at extremely elevated levels for up to two hours at a time. EPA’s Web site on particulate matter and its 2009 “Summary of PM2.5 Risk Estimates,” stated, “an examination of cause-specific risk estimates found that PM2.5 risk estimates for cardiovascular deaths are similar to those for all-cause deaths….” Also, in July 2011 EPA stated in the Federal Register announcement of its Cross-State Air Pollution Rule that “a recent EPA analysis estimated that 2005 levels of PM2.5 and ozone were responsible for between 130,000 and 320,000 PM2.5-related and 4,700 ozone-related premature deaths….”
And to cap it all, last September EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson told the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, “Particulate matter causes death. It doesn’t make you sick. It’s directly causal to dying sooner than you should.”
But in descriptions more tangible than statistical, the experiments conducted by EPA’s North Carolina doctors sound like something out of World War II-era Germany.
“EPA obtained their PM2.5 from a diesel truck,” explained Dr. David Schnare, a former EPA litigator who is now director of American Tradition Institute’s Environmental Law Center, which filed the lawsuit in Virginia. “It is difficult to overstate the atrocity of this research.
“EPA parked a truck’s exhaust pipe directly beneath an intake pipe on the side of a building. The exhaust was sucked into the pipe, mixed with some additional air and then piped directly into the lungs of the human subjects. EPA actually has pictures of this gas chamber, a clear plastic pipe stuck into the mouth of a subject, his lips sealing it to his face, diesel fumes inhaled straight into his lungs.”
Among other things, the lawsuit demands that:
* EPA to be barred from conducting illegal life-and health-threatening experiments.
* A formal investigation of EPA’s human experiments.
* Regulations based on the illegal experiments to be suspended pending an investigation.
“In the context of rules established after scientific horrors of World War II and the Tuskegee syphilis experiments,” Milloy said in a press release announcing the lawsuit, “the notion that EPA would pipe high levels of PM2.5 and diesel exhaust into the lungs of unhealthy people to see what would happen is simply appalling.”
In June Milloy filed a complaint with the North Carolina Medical Board that accused three doctors in the state – two employed by EPA (Dr. Andrew Ghio and Dr. Wayne Cascio) and one by the University of North Carolina (Dr. Eugene Chung) – of intentionally exposing test subjects to PM2.5. In his letter he outlined the details of EPA’s outrageous activities to the board’s president.
“During these experiments,” Milloy wrote, “the study subjects were intentionally exposed to airborne fine particulate matter (“PM2.5”) at levels ranging from 41.54 micrograms per cubic meter to 750.83 micrograms per cubic meter for periods of up to two hours.”
Milloy alleged the three doctors violated EPA standards of conduct in human research as well as the Hippocratic Oath. Based upon information he obtained via FOIA, Milloy learned that experiments were conducted on 41 subjects. Of those, one experienced atrial fibrillation – a 58-year-old obese woman with a history of health problems and family history of heart disease – and another developed an elevated heart rate. Both returned to normal breathing and heartbeat function within two hours, according to an EPA report.
Among the requirements established by EPA, researchers must minimize risk to subjects and risks must be reasonable compared to anticipated benefits. Since EPA has already determined that PM2.5 is lethal and can cause death within hours of breathing it from the diesel truck’s exhaust pipe, no apparent benefit could have been derived from the research. Test subjects must be fully informed of the risks involved, and studies with “risk of substantial injury to a human subject” are not to be approved except in extremely rare cases that are approved by higher agency authorities. Milloy – who received 3,500 pages of documents responsive to his FOIA request – alleges the test subjects were never told that their health, or lives, were imperiled.
Milloy, who publishes the Web site Junkscience.com, has created a special Internet site for the case called EPAHumanTesting.com. The site archives extensive details, which include historical context about the legal and proper conduct of scientific experiments on human beings, in addition to copies of the documents he received and correspondence with government officials about the case.
“That EPA administrator Lisa Jackson permitted this heinous experimentation to occur under her watch shocks the conscience,” said Milloy.
Paul Chesser is an associate fellow for the National Legal and Policy Center and publishes CarolinaPlottHound.com , an aggregator of North Carolina news. He was also director of communications last year, and a senior fellow for part of this year, for the American Tradition Institute, which filed the lawsuit representing Steve Milloy.
If not August 1939.
Every morning I wake up wondering if it’s the day.
1. M.E. missiles flying
2. Europe “bank emergency”
3. S. China Sea, Japanese Navy ships sunk.
Every morning.
bttt
What could POSSIBLY go wrong?
Bullchit.
See, you won't hear a WORD of this from the Pravda Press.
NOT. ONE. WORD.
Oh, except if Republicans want to know more. THEN you will hear about it.
Associated Press: Partisan Republican Committee Grills EPA On Unfounded Rumors
Reuters: Attempting To Score Election-Year Points, GOP Makes Wild Accusations Against EPA
Yahoo: Look. The Republicans Are Out Of Control. LET'S JUST KILL THEM.
If it turns out we are the victors, we will be able to write the history books.
Every even-numbered year at the calendar date and place of your choice. We can exchange that info by other secure means.
If I’m understanding correctly, this EPA “study” proved that if a person sucks diesel exhaust directly from a truck’s tailpipe and into his/her lungs for a sustained period of 2 hours, that person has an elevated risk of premature death.
Then they used the results of this insane test to enact EPA regulations, including their Cross-State Air Pollution Rule.
If the plaintiff’s lawsuit prevails, the EPA will, among other things, be forced to repeal any regulations based on these experiments.
Well done, Steven Milloy. You’ve certainly earned my respect and gratitude.
This is just chilling to know that it happened in America. I had a strong emotional reaction to this. Like many on this thread, I wondered about who the “volunteers” were for this horrific, Nazi-like experiment. Prayers for the victims.
My morning worry? That New York City has been blown up again and that Israel is destroyed. What a great way to greet the day!
The 58 year old woman who supposedly nearly died had a history of health problems, and in the experiment, she had a minor complication that resolved within two hours. The original medical publication can be read here. This was published because no adverse health effect from breathing particulate matter had ever been observed before.
Despite the statement in the article at the top of this thread that "EPA has already determined that PM2.5 is lethal and can cause death within hours of breathing it..." there is, actually, no firm evidence of that. That determination was made on the basis of statistical analyses, in which a correlation has been found between high particulate content in the air and (very slight) increase in the number of asthma/COPD deaths. Since correlation is not causation, there actually is no solid evidence linking particulates to death. (I am not giving an opinion one way or the other here.)
Although, overall, I like Steve Milloy's work, I suspect that he is grandstanding with this lawsuit. It is not about supposedly dangerous research (which was conducted after IRB review, and with full consent of informed participants) so much as it is about scoring against the EPA. I'm not a fan of politically motivated lawsuits, no matter which side of the political spectrum is filing the lawsuit.
last September EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson told the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, “Particulate matter causes death. It doesn’t make you sick. It’s directly causal to dying sooner than you should.”
Now if that's actually true there could be no excuse for these human experiments, IMHO.
If it's not true in the way she allegedly stated it she flat out lied to the committee.
One thing that I'd like to point out to everyone on this thread, is that what happened in Germany in the 30s and 40s is not an abberation. The people around who will assist in this kind of evil are all around you. Think about how many people had to participate to carry this out, the carpenters, nurses, technicians, doctors and bureaucrats... We're never as far away from this kind of thing as most people would assume.
So true, it sets up minorities for failure, it’s a shame! Minorities are slaves still, only the chains are different, but the slave masters are the same! Also, the Democrats are enslaving humanity with a poor education! A generation of minorities have been told that they are special, beyond reproach, I firmly believe this is why so many black youths are incarcerated, they are not afraid of the law!
If it's not true in the way she allegedly stated it she flat out lied to the committee.
What she said is not true, period.
I had to go look up her background; most EPA Administrators are not scientists, and are politically motivated hacks. She actually does have a science background, but still seems to be a politically motivated hack.
There are statistical analyses that show that on days when the particulate matter count is high, there is an extremely small increase in the number of deaths of people with asthma, COPD, and other lung diseases. This shows a correlation, but does not establish any causative effect. (I'm not entirely convinced of the correlation, even--the effect is VERY small.)
Unfortunately, the EPA uses weak data like this to push draconian "solutions" that directly decrease our freedom. And then it leads to the situation where conservatives are calling out for the EPA to be dismantled, which is also a draconian measure. The EPA has its constitutional function; the trick is to keep it from metastasizing (which is always the problem when dealing with government agencies, no matter how necessary they are).
The study being conducted was vetted and approved by an independent review board. No study with human subjects can be conducted without that review. The people participating in the study were "consented" beforehand--that is, they were counseled on the purpose and potential risks of the study, and had to sign consent forms indicating that they understand the risks before they were allowed to participate. The risks of this study actually were quite low; this woman's medical problem was minor and resolved within a couple of hours by itself. It's possible that the problem wouldn't even have been noticed had she not been continuously monitored during the test.
It's obvious to me that Steve Milloy's motivation is purely political here, and meant to strike a blow against the EPA. If he were really concerned about the safety of medical research, he could just start picking victims out of adverse event registries and suing on their behalf. People volunteer for studies all the time in which they can be seriously injured or even die; there is no perfectly safe medical study. The purpose of the IRB is to make sure that the risk to patients is outweighed by the potential benefit of the study.
BTW, you are perfectly welcome to volunteer to serve on an IRB. They always have a citizen member to help oversee the process.
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