Detroit - 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.