daveman
Diamond Member
- Jun 25, 2010
- 76,470
- 29,484
MILLOY: EPAs illegal human experiments could break Nuremberg Code
Disgusting.
The Obama Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says no law empowers any judge to stop it from conducting illegal scientific experiments on seniors, children and the sick.
That astounding assertion will be tested Friday, when a federal district court in Alexandria decides whether it has jurisdiction to hear claims made by the American Tradition Institute that EPA researchers are exposing unwary and genetically susceptible senior citizens to air pollutants the agency says can cause a variety of serious cardiac and respiratory problems, including sudden death.
Although the lawsuit only addresses ongoing, purportedly illegal experimentation being carried out at an EPA laboratory on the Chapel Hill campus of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, EPA researchers and grantees have carried out dozens of similarly shocking experiments over the past 10 years at UNC and other schools, including Rutgers University, the University of Michigan, University of Rochester, University of Southern California and University of Washington.
During that time at those university laboratories, EPA-employed or -funded researchers have intentionally exposed a variety of people to concentrated levels of different air pollutants, including particulate matter (soot and dust), diesel exhaust, ozone and chlorine gas the latter substance more recognized as a World War I-era chemical weapon than as an outdoor air pollutant.
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Rather than defending itself against the serious allegations made by the institute, the EPA instead has said it is essentially above the law and the federal court has no business hearing those serious charges.
The EPA claims the court has no jurisdiction to hear the case under the Clean Air Act (CAA): Nothing in the CAA provides a meaningful standard to evaluate what air pollution EPA chooses to study or how. To the contrary, the CAA gives EPA broad discretion in the subject matter of its research program. Congress broadly mandated that EPA study the health effects of air pollution.
Of course, Congress most likely thought the EPA would conduct such research in a lawful manner.
The EPA also says because no judicially manageable standards are available for judging how and when [EPA] should exercise its discretion in deciding what research to undertake, EPAs decision to study the health effects of [particulate matter] using controlled human exposure studies was a decision committed to the EPAs discretion and immune from review under the [Administrative Procedures Act], the general law governing the conduct of federal agencies.
The EPAs view, then, is that because Congress has not enacted a law that expressly forbids the agency from violating the Nuremberg Code and federal regulations governing human testing or that expressly guides judges in evaluating the conduct of agency researchers who experiment on their fellow human beings, the agency has unfettered discretion to do as it pleases with the young, old, sick and anyone else who falls into its clutches.
That astounding assertion will be tested Friday, when a federal district court in Alexandria decides whether it has jurisdiction to hear claims made by the American Tradition Institute that EPA researchers are exposing unwary and genetically susceptible senior citizens to air pollutants the agency says can cause a variety of serious cardiac and respiratory problems, including sudden death.
Although the lawsuit only addresses ongoing, purportedly illegal experimentation being carried out at an EPA laboratory on the Chapel Hill campus of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, EPA researchers and grantees have carried out dozens of similarly shocking experiments over the past 10 years at UNC and other schools, including Rutgers University, the University of Michigan, University of Rochester, University of Southern California and University of Washington.
During that time at those university laboratories, EPA-employed or -funded researchers have intentionally exposed a variety of people to concentrated levels of different air pollutants, including particulate matter (soot and dust), diesel exhaust, ozone and chlorine gas the latter substance more recognized as a World War I-era chemical weapon than as an outdoor air pollutant.
--
Rather than defending itself against the serious allegations made by the institute, the EPA instead has said it is essentially above the law and the federal court has no business hearing those serious charges.
The EPA claims the court has no jurisdiction to hear the case under the Clean Air Act (CAA): Nothing in the CAA provides a meaningful standard to evaluate what air pollution EPA chooses to study or how. To the contrary, the CAA gives EPA broad discretion in the subject matter of its research program. Congress broadly mandated that EPA study the health effects of air pollution.
Of course, Congress most likely thought the EPA would conduct such research in a lawful manner.
The EPA also says because no judicially manageable standards are available for judging how and when [EPA] should exercise its discretion in deciding what research to undertake, EPAs decision to study the health effects of [particulate matter] using controlled human exposure studies was a decision committed to the EPAs discretion and immune from review under the [Administrative Procedures Act], the general law governing the conduct of federal agencies.
The EPAs view, then, is that because Congress has not enacted a law that expressly forbids the agency from violating the Nuremberg Code and federal regulations governing human testing or that expressly guides judges in evaluating the conduct of agency researchers who experiment on their fellow human beings, the agency has unfettered discretion to do as it pleases with the young, old, sick and anyone else who falls into its clutches.
Disgusting.
