For Immediate Release:
January 20, 2015
Contact:
Craig Richardson
[email protected]
EPA Illegally Used Children as Guinea Pigs in Diesel Exhaust Experiments, FOIA’d Documents Show
Washington, DC (Jan. 20) — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) exposed children as young as 10 years old to dangerous levels of diesel exhaust in medical experiments, show documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The documents are being jointly released by the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) and the Energy and Environmental Legal Institute (E&E Legal).
“Not only has EPA been caught violating the letter and spirit of virtually every national and international code, law and regulation for the protection of human subjects in medical experiments developed since World War II,” said E&E Legal General Counsel David Schnare, “but they have done so in shocking style, abusing the most vulnerable people of all, children.”
“EPA and its researchers have perverted science and morality in using children as guinea pigs in what amount to pseudoscientific experiments,” said CFACT Executive Director Craig Rucker.
The EPA-funded experiments were conducted at the University of Southern California (USC) and the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) between 2003 and 2010. Despite that the EPA had concluded inhaling diesel exhaust can cause death within hours and that the California Air Resources Board (CARB) concluded there is no safe exposure to diesel exhaust, the USC/UCLA researchers sprayed diesel exhaust up the noses of 20 children aged 10 to 15 years of age. The purpose of the experiment was to see what happened to the children after the exposures.
“Compounding the basic villainy of the experimentation itself,” says Schnare, “is that the USC/UCLA researchers failed to warn the parents and children how dangerous EPA and CARB had determined diesel exhaust to be. So there was no informed consent as required by law.”
“It’s clear from the documents obtained that the experiments violated the Nuremberg Code, as adopted by the state of California, and the federal regulations known as “The Common Rule,” which are intended to protect human subjects from rogue researchers,” Schnare stated.
Under California law, violations of the medical experimentation laws are punishable by fines and/or imprisonment.
“In addition, once evidence of these experiments had been uncovered, EPA attempted to destroy evidence and USC staff stonewalled inquiries,” noted Rucker.
“The only way EPA, USC and UCLA are not guilty of illegal experimentation is if EPA and CARB had wildly exaggerated the dangers of diesel exhaust.” said Rucker. “But in that case, the two regulators have then been grossly misleading the public and Congress in order to issue scientifically unsupported and costly regulations,” Rucker added.
Congress and appropriate law enforcement agencies should investigate the conduct of EPA, USC, UCLA and the individual researchers, recommended Schnare and Rucker.
Additional information is available at Junkscience.com.
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The Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal) is a 501(c)(3) organization engaged in strategic litigation, policy research, and public education on important energy and environmental issues. Primarily through its petition litigation and transparency practice areas, E&E Legal seeks to correct onerous federal and state policies that hinder the economy, increase the cost of energy, eliminate jobs, and do little or nothing to improve the environment.
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