Testing to destruction? The EPA accused of Tuskegee-like human experimentation

Which do you find more shocking: that the Environmental Protection Agency conducts experiments on humans that its own risk assessments would deem potentially lethal, or that it hides the results of those experiments from Congress and the public because they debunk those very same risk assessments?

JunkScience.com recently obtained through the Freedom of Information Act the results of tests conducted on 41 people who were exposed by EPA researchers to high levels of airborne fine particulate matter – soot and dust known as PM2.5.

If we are to believe the congressional testimony of EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, these experiments risked the lives of these 41 people, at least one of whom was already suffering from heart problems.

Ms. Jackson testified in September before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, “Particulate matter causes premature death. It doesn’t make you sick. It’s directly causal to dying sooner than you should.” Just to clarify what Ms. Jackson meant by “sooner than you should,” deaths allegedly caused by PM2.5 are supposed to occur within a day or so of exposure.

Got that? Airborne dust and soot don’t make you sick, they just kill you – virtually upon exposure.

Not quite sure how to parse this one. You have to read the entire article, and additional material is difficult to find.

But if it's true (whichever part might be true, that PM2.5 is dangerous or not, that EPA did human tests with it or not), it is profoundly disturbing.

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