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.
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).