The EPA actively recruits sick patients — suffering from obesity or asthma — and pays them to be subjected to diesel fumes in the glass cage shown below. According to a report by the EPA’s Inspector General:
The EPA obtained informed consent from the 81 human study subjects before exposing them to pollutants. While the consent forms met the requirements of 40 CFR Part 26, we found that exposure risks were not always consistently represented. Further, the EPA did not include information on long-term cancer risks in its diesel exhaust studies’ consent forms.
More on this story at NCPA’s Energy and Environment: Clearing the Air blog.
This is alarming. Every day there are new reports that government agencies are breaking the law or overreaching their boundaries. This is a direct attack against American law; it is setting a negative precedent that will affect us going forward. It is disappointing to know that the agencies that are set to protect the people are harming them.
The EPA scares the people with their reports. They exaggerate the threats, primarily because their studies are fundamentally flawed. If they measure extreme levels of fumes in obese and asthmatic individuals, the report will certainly overstate the effects. We cannot say that something is really harmful if the subject tests don’t reflect the average population.
The FDA and the EPA are entities that are supposed to protect consumers, but their recent actions make it seem as if they are trying to do the opposite: harm them. This should be a hint that the government is failing.
This seems to be more of a shout that the government is failing.
One starts questioning if these agencies are really trying to protect the consumers from an external condition, or if they conduct studies that will prove their preconceived points.
Hurt the few to protect the many?
I don’t understand. How can they comply with the law, yet they omit the worse long term effects that these subjects might suffer from? I believe this is contradicting with what the law mandates.
“The EPA actively recruits sick patients — suffering from obesity or asthma — and pays them to be subjected to diesel fumes in the glass cage shown below.”
Its amazing to see a headline like this in 2014. How this is not in the mainstream is beyond me.
It is unsettling that people would accept to be subjected to this for compensation. How ever much it is, it certainly isn’t enough.
Unless they like the smell of diesel fumes.
“Further, the EPA did not include information on long-term cancer risks in its diesel exhaust studies’ consent forms.”
Anyone signing up for this I would imagine think in the short term, not the long term.
Their thought process will become shorter term if they keep inhaling diesel fuel.
Breathing fumes is short term, high concentration in the experiments. I think the IG is warning that the effects might not be observed for years.
This is an extremely disturbing revelation and reminiscent of the most troubling of dystopias.