Posted on 06/19/2012 1:18:07 PM PDT by jazusamo
After experiments on humans were conducted that exposed them to airborne particulates considered to be lethal, a sound-science advocate has accused physician researchers working for the Environmental Protection Agency of misconduct and violations of the Hippocratic Oath.
Steve Milloy , publisher of Junkscience.com and author of Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them , filed a complaint with the North Carolina Medical Board last week 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 inhalable pollutants that the agency considers both cancer- and death-causing.
“During these experiments, 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 wrote to Dr. Ralph C. Loomis, president of the NC Medical Board. “…the EPA has determined that PM2.5 is ultrahazardous — i.e., that exposure to even low levels of PM2.5 are potentially lethal within hours of exposure and that no exposure to PM2.5 is safe.
“The EPA also believes that PM2.5 is carcinogenic to humans.”
Milloy cited EPA’s Web site on particulate matter and its 2009 “Summary of PM2.5 Risk Estimates,” which 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….”
Driving the point home, in September last year EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson (in photo) 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.”
As for PM2.5 as a carcinogen, EPA stated in its 2009 assessment that “the evidence is suggestive of a causal relationship between PM2.5 exposures and cancer, with the strongest evidence from the epidemiologic studies of lung cancer mortality.”
With this background knowledge, EPA still subjected human test victims – even those with other risk factors – to intentional exposure of PM2.5. Based upon information he obtained via the federal Freedom of Information Act, 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, based upon EPA’s report.
In his letter to the NC Medical Board, Milloy alleged the three doctors violated EPA standards of conduct in human research and the Hippocratic Oath. Among the requirements established by EPA, researchers must minimize risk to subjects and risks must be reasonable compared to anticipated benefits. 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.
Likewise Milloy pointed to the Hippocratic Oath, in which doctors must pledge to “exercise my art solely for the benefit of my patients” and “the relief of suffering, the prevention of disease and the promotion of health….” He also doubted whether the human subjects were adequately informed of the risks they would undergo – he has requested via another FOIA copies of those disclosures, but has not received any.
“Not only did Drs. Ghio, Chung and Cascio intentionally expose the 41 human study subjects to ‘killer’ PM2.5,” Milloy wrote to Dr. Loomis, “but the study subjects were exposed to levels of PM2.5 that were…as high as 75 times greater than the national average, 50 times greater than the annual regulatory standard, and 21 times greater than the 24-hour regulatory standard for PM2.5.”
Milloy said there is no evidence that the doctors submitted justification to their authorities “for intentionally exposing humans to PM2.5.” He also told the medical board there was no reason for the experiments as the test subjects would realize no health benefits, nor would the overall population, as EPA determined back in 1997 that human exposure to PM2.5 is “ultrahazardous.”
Besides calling attention to the potential misconduct of the doctors, Milloy revealed the EPA doctors published the case study of only the woman who suffered the cardiac incident in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. Meanwhile the results of the 40 other test subjects, who experienced “no clinical effects requiring follow-up,” were omitted from the EPA doctors’ report. Instead focusing on the obese, unhealthy subject, their article concluded that “exposure to air pollution including particulate matter may cause supraventricular arrhythmias” – so much for complete, unbiased science coming from EPA.
The upshot – as Milloy explained in an email – is that either EPA truly believes PM2.5 causes cancer and/or instant death and thus their doctors are guilty of misconduct, or they have been lying for years and this research was not harmful after all.
Either EPA’s credibility, or their legal liability, is at stake – as are all the regulations they’ve implemented based upon that premise.
“If PM2.5 does not kill then its utility Mercury Air Toxics Standard and Clean State Air Pollution Rule benefits claims are entirely bogus,” Milloy told me in an email. “Must be one or the other; can't be neither.”
Paul Chesser is an associate fellow for the National Legal and Policy Center.
The EPA has to go, their unethical and/or criminal regulations are destroying the country.
The easy fix for this is to mandate that the very first human test subject be an EPA or FDA employee.....if none are available, I suggest an IRS, ATF or DHS/TSA employee....
That would be my Christmas present....
The EPA is an unelected, unaccountable branch of legislators who build an empire but do not concern themselves with the public’s well interests.
Dr. Mengala would be proud.
Global warmists watermelons see humans as the roaches of their globe. It is not surprising they would conduct this experiment to see how many people they would murder with the geo-engineering projects - that are already ONGOING. Currently, they are spraying aluminum and barrium into the atmosphere.
Here is what was involved in this experiment; http://www.lyberty.com/encyc/articles/PM2-5.html
PM2.5 particles - fine particles in the (ambient) air 2.5 micrometres or less in size (known as PM2.5).
These “PM2.5 particles” are known to produce respiratory and cardiovascular illness.
Short for “Particulate Matter, 2.5 micrometers or less”
“PM2.5 particles are air pollutants with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers or less, small enough to invade even the smallest airways. These particles generally come from activities that burn fossil fuels, such as traffic, smelting, and metal processing.
PM2.5 particles were measured in micrograms per cubic meter. For every 10 micrograms per cubic meter increase of PM2.5, CIMT increased by 5.9 percent. After adjusting for various factors, including smoking, the researchers found that CIMT increased by 3.9 to 4.3 percent for every 10 micrograms per cubic meter increase in PM2.5. There were greater increases in people over 60, women, and people taking cholesterol-lowering medication. The greatest increases were seen in women 60 or older: a 15.7 percent rise in CIMT for every 10 micrograms per cubic meter.
The changes observed were similar to those that occur in people living with smokers, Kuenzli said.
According to Kuenzli, air pollution can cause inflammatory responses both in the body’s respiratory tract and in the blood vessels. In the case of the circulatory system, this can eventually lead to thickening of the artery wall and its attendant problems.
Rabbit studies had shown that exposure to airborne particles produced all the signs of atherosclerosis, while human studies have shown that inhaling these particles resulted in systemic inflammation. “We think it’s plausible,” Kuenzli said.”[1]
Links:
[1] “Pollution May Hasten Hardening of Arteries”
Variation to the Ambient Air Quality National Environment Protection Measures (NEPM, Australia)
Thanks for posting that, at least it makes clearer on what the PM2.5 is all about.
What’s the big deal? It’s not like they were inconveniencing seagulls or something.
Never forget, it was a Republican President, Nixon who forced all this on us.
Never forget, it was a Republican President, GHW Bush who forced the Americans with Disabilities Act on us.
Both of those agencies are key players in the destruction of small businesses.
I’ll stop here, before I say something that gets me kicked off, or visted by the SS.
marker
You’d think the federal government would have learned from the Tuskegee experiment, but apparently they didn’t.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment
In fairness to Nixon, it should be pointed out that he was preempting a rather heavily Democrat congress that wanted to create a much more activist agency.
Amen to that...It’s still hard to believe that took place in this country, now stuff like this is coming to light and this experiment happened in the 21st century, pathetic!
I don’t see what the big deal is.... After all the EPA is about protecting the environment not us humans who foul precious Gia ....
/ s
Dr. Mengele experimented on innocent humans.
Indeed.
The EPA doesn't round up innocent human beings and lock them in cages to perform unethical experiments, they just dupe gullible volunteers into taking part in unethical experiments.
It's another example of Nazism with a smiley face.
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