UMichigan doc renounces human testing on air pollutant following JunkScience pressure

At the University of Michigan, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been funding experiments on human beings to determine the effect of particulate pollution on their health. The tests are similar to others around the country that use mobile units to pump in filtered exhaust to labs exposing paid subjects to so-called PM2.5 particulates.

Trouble is, the same EPA that funds the studies claims that any exposure to PM2.5 particulates can be deadly.

“Studies demonstrate an association between premature mortality and fine particulate pollution at the lowest levels measured in the relevant studies, levels that are significantly below” existing Clean Air Act standards, EPA assistant administrator for air and radiation Gina McCarthy testified before Congress. "These studies have not observed a level at which premature mortality effects do not occur.”

If PM2.5 particulates are as dangerous as the EPA says, then how can the same agency simultaneously expose human lab subjects to the compounds? Only by grossly misleading the public on the harmful effects of air pollution.

In truth, as the U-M studies show, PM2.5 exposure is not fatal, yet the EPA — with the help of its environmental and media allies — has been scaring the public on particulates to justify stringent new air regulations even as they are costing jobs and shutting down coal plants.

"Soot particles from industrial flares, diesel exhaust and road grit ... can get deep inside the lungs, causing disease and early death," writes the Houston Chronicle, parroting EPA's call for costly new standards that the Obama Administration claims will save 46,000 lives a year.

Steve Milloy, a regulatory scholar with the Competitive Enterprise Institute and publisher of JunkScience.com, is calling the EPA's bluff.

Milloy is suing researchers like U-M's Robert Brook claiming he is conducting illegal human experiments.

“Dr. Robert D. Brook is intentionally exposing human study subjects to an ultrahazardous and toxic substance in violation of federal regulations concerning the protection of human subjects in scientific research,” wrote Milloy in a complaint filed last week with the state of Michigan’s Health Professions Division. “These actions violate Michigan state civil and criminal law.”

The action follows a $2 million claim filed this year by Matthew Cipparone, one of 41 subjects exposed to exhaust fumes and particulates in a study conducted at the University of North Carolina. Cipparone, paid $12 an hour for his part in the tests, claims that he has experienced illness since the tests.

In an interview, Brook says that the tests he has conducted were board-reviewed and exposed human subjects to unharmful, low levels of particulate matter less than what “tyou would receive from 1 or 2 puffs on a cigarette.” Indeed, control groups can be crucial to scientific knowledge.

But Brook’s argument that there are levels of risk to PM2.5 exposure contradicts EPA claims that there is no safe level of exposure.

Using test results from its university-funded research, EPA is now setting particulate levels so low — from the current 15 micrograms per cubic meter to 12 mcg — that critics say they have no effect on human health even as they costs jobs and billions in industry compliance.

The EPA has justified its new Cross-State Air Pollution Rule and the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards on the basis of risk assessment that PM2.5 can kill within hours of exposure. Yet, its disclaimer to human subjects says merely that “you may experience some minor degree of airway irritation, cough or shortness of breath or wheezing.”

Brook says that — while he has received EPA approval to conduct more testing — he is not going to conduct further experiments, though he says it has nothing to do with Milloy’s complaint. “I’m not going to do (these tests) because I don’t believe in exposing people,” says Brook. “I’ve shown PM2.5 is bad for you.”

Bad for you in the 150 mcg doses that people receive in unregulated Beijing, China — but hardly deadly in the U.S. where the average dose is 10 mcg. Milloy says there are obviously healthy levels of PM2.5, as EPA’s intentional exposure of human subjects proves.

"Despite the ongoing economic challenges facing our country, the Obama-EPA continues to roll out strict environmental standards that cause severe economic strain on state and local communities, millions of lost jobs and skyrocketing energy prices," Republican Senator James Inhofe, R-Oklahoma, told Reuters.

It’s time that EPA came clean: Is it illegally using humans as lab rats in Tuskegee-like experiments? Or is its crusade against particulates bureaucratic over-reach? The evidence points to the latter.

From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20130723/OPINION01/307230022#ixzz2ZtO4wtQD