UPDATE: A new website chronicles the issue here http://epahumantesting.com/
Exclusive to WUWT by David W. Schnare
Statement of ATI’s Lead Counsel
on
American Tradition Institute v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(US District Court, Easter District of Virginia No. 1:12-cv-1066)
There are few occasions in life that emerge directly from the core of an individual and almost never are those memorialized in a law suit. On Friday, September 21, 2012, I took five copies of a complaint to the Albert V. Bryan U.S. Courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia, filing one of them with the court and having each of the rest stamped and then sent to four senior government officials, Attorney General Eric Holder, U.S. Attorney Neil H. MacBride, EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson and EPA General Counsel Scott Fulton. I sent them summons to appear and defend themselves in part because of my first name.
I was named after David Steiner, a man who died of starvation in Buchenwald concentration camp on May 3, 1945. Tattooed on his body was the number 59059. He was witness to horrors that, today, we have a hard time even contemplating, something that I thought would never exist on this planet again – the abhorrent practice of giving human subjects poisons in order to determine what subsequently happens to them.
I have always been deeply affected by the circumstances of my great-uncle’s death. It is a heavy burden to carry the name of such a victim. As I matured, I committed my life to giving to our civilization that which David Steiner was never able to give himself. I have given 37 years of service to the United States, most of that in an effort to protect human health and the environment as a professional at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
I was able to secure a position of responsibility and trust at EPA in large part because the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill offered me the opportunity to obtain graduate degrees and prepare myself for a career in public service. Until a few weeks ago, I had been a strong supporter of each. Then Steven Milloy asked me to represent him and other members of the American Tradition Institute who have stories much like mine, or otherwise cannot countenance such human experimentation.
Steve’s story is worse than death. His uncle, Zoran Galkanovic, was incarcerated at the Mauthausen concentration camp. Upon threat of death, Mr. Galkanovic was forced to rise each morning and identify those individuals at the concentration camp too ill to work, knowing they would subsequently be executed that very day. Because of the inhumanity forced on Mr. Galkanovic, Mr. Milloy has accepted as a family responsibility the fight against any government who subjects its citizens to inhumane treatment. Who knew it would be our government? Who knew it would be the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency? Who knew that human experimentation would be done on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill? Who knew it would be an official body of that University that approved this research?
On first blush, I simply could not believe Mr. Milloy. Then I looked carefully at the facts and at the law. This case involves the intentional exposure of human subjects to “fine particulate” matter, also known as PM2.5. EPA obtained their PM2.5 from a diesel truck. It is difficult to overstate the atrocity of this research. EPA parked a truck’s exhaust pipe directly beneath an intake pipe on the side of a building. The exhaust was sucked into the pipe, mixed with some additional air and then piped directly into the lungs of the human subjects. EPA actually has pictures of this gas chamber, a clear plastic pipe stuck into the mouth of a subject, his lips sealing it to his face, diesel fumes inhaled straight into his lungs.
Unbelievable as that may seem, consider the additional fact that EPA has officially concluded that this gas is a genotoxic carcinogen and that there is no exposure level below which it can be considered safe. In fact, EPA Administrator Jackson testified to Congress that of all deaths occurring in the United States, 1 in 4 “is attributable to PM2.5.” She told them “Particulate matter causes premature death. It doesn’t make you sick. It’s directly causal to dying sooner than you should.”
Under the law, under EPA regulations and under EPA policy, this human experimentation is strictly prohibited. To conduct human experimentation, the human subjects must be properly informed of the risks they face and these risks must be less than the potential benefit of the experiment. My family knows how that works too.
Few today know the ravages of Polio, but some of us are old enough to remember it too well. Susan Paidar was a childhood neighbor, the same age as one of my brothers. She died in an iron lung. And, she was one of the last victims of this terrible disease, in small part because of the courage of one of my brothers. In 1952, at age 6, my brother Rick was selected to be in the first human test group for the Salk vaccine. He was offered the possibility of never having to worry about polio again. He was a human subject and there was a real benefit from that human experimentation.
In the section describing the mandatory benefit that must be offered to the human subjects, EPA’s PM2.5 “informed consent” baldly states “there is no benefit.” Worse, the form never informs the subjects that they will be inhaling diesel fumes, never tells them the gas is a carcinogen, never tells them about all the other toxic substances in diesel exhaust pouring into their lungs, never tells them that because PM2.5 is genotoxic, it might cause disease in children they might wish to have.
Medical ethicist, Professor John D. Dunn, MD, JD, called EPA’s human experimentation “scandalously unethical and immoral” and said “There can be no further tolerance of this misconduct.” This is not the EPA I knew. This is not the University of North Carolina I knew. This is not the American Tradition of our nation. But, this is why I traveled to the U.S. Courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia – to put a stop to it.
David W. Schnare, Esq., MSPH, PhD.
Director
Environmental Law Center
American Tradition Institute.
=============================================================
Steve Milloy will have a related major announcement tomorrow at junkscience.com
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Mike, this is mostly a gross violation of test protocol and a deliberate Catch-22 set up by Milloy. We know the effects of pollutants are hogwash, but the EPA has claimed ludicrous harm by miniscule amounts of pollutants. Then, they performed this study. Either they attempted to kill their test subjects for no good reason, in violation of all requirements and sense, or they lied openly, brazenly, and repeatedly in recorded and sworn testimony and official reports.
Either way, if there is any justice, Lisa Jackson will see the inside of a prison cell.
Mike Wryley
Been there, son; and add orchard spray to my CV, plus nicotine, and a great delight in the scent of diesel fumes and kero, and if you are only 61 can call you a kid.
I’m with you all the way in what you wrote above.
This sort of thing has happened often enough before. Look at the UN ruling that Ireland’s energy policies were non-compliant with the Aarhus Convention. The world is full of governments and bureaucrats enforcing laws and codes of practice on us, then telling us what to do and finding that their demands breach the earlier laws that they produced.
What generally happens is that everything is brushed under the carpet, and an implicit finding is made that compliance with the law is only for little people, not important bureaucrats…
ps. I’ll also note that 2 hours at 100-300 micrograms is less than 24 hours at 35 micrograms, which is the legal 24 hour standard for PM2.5.
—————————————————-
Right. So, drinking a bottle of tequila in 2 hours is the same as drinking it over 24 hours?
The dose makes the poison, remember?
Those who scoffed at this story seriously underestimate Steve Milloy. He is not a nutcase, and is very far from stupid. As others have noted, he has the EPA in a pincer movement. Either what they say about these particulates is crap, or they have knowingly subjected study participants to potentially lethal harm. Either way, they are guilty of major malfeasance.
I’m rather confused about the purpose of the EPA investigations.
1) I expect that it is possible to measure changes in pulmonary function after exposure to exhaust.
2) I am not certain how any of the these experiments relate to the risk of cancer.
3) I am somewhat puzzled by the assertion that 1/4 of premature deaths are preventable.
The test of the latter two assertions would be extremely difficult.
_Jim says:
September 24, 2012 at 8:19 am: Brad says September 24, 2012 at 1:37 am
Really doubt this is true, and the lead in of concentration is way over the top.
BTW, any animal or human research at US universities is approved by a group at each university that includes ethicists, members of the general public, and college professors.
Is the above in bold) anywhere close to being an “appeal to authority” (argumentum ad verecundiam)?
“Trust us, we’re from the faculty and we have approved this research.”
BTW, where does one go to be first trained then certified as an ‘ethicist’?
? An IRB board is devalued because it is an appeal to authority?
The board or his answer -please note I was “asking” and you have chosen ‘board’ whereas I was addressing his answer; the question would seem to still be standing BTW … doesn’t this strike you as being anything like climate science (note, this is a question)? Where was the ‘debate’ (pro and con) expressed prior to the execution of this research? A good question was raised by posters earlier too, how was consent obtained from those upon whom the tests were performed and were they fully aware of what was being conducted? This is not meant to overshadow the other issue upon which the lawsuit is being based either (EPA claims that are in stark contrast and diametrical to actions performed or committed by that same EPA) …
My original post: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/23/major-landmark-lawsuit-filed-against-the-epa-for-immoral-human-experimentation/#comment-1087318
.
A search for “John D. Dunn” “medical ethicist” gets nothing but this article.
Lisa Jackson’s 9/22/2011 testimony available online does not include any of the quotes given in this article. Is there a full transcript of that particular testimony available online? (IOW: where’s the complete data?)
Does anyone truly believe that subjects stood for 2-3 hours mouth-breathing through that tube? A pulmonary function test machine was probably used to test lung function before and after the inhalation test.
Exhaust from a diesel truck parked outside…hmm, can someone point me to the source for that detail?
This story may be exaggerated to the point of ineffectiveness.
This is going to be interesting.
Is it the EPA that determined that there are no safe levels of particulates? How so?
In the UK in a report prepared for the policy makers on the environment and using the same international data set used in all these studies, it is in fact claimed that there is a safe threshold for particulates in the environment. This threshold is presumably the level at which a decrease in life time exposure produces no statistically significant change in life expectancy.
In point of fact in the UK it is said in the report that there are only a very few places in the UK where the particulates in the atmosphere (in that part of the atmosphere where we live and can breathe them in) ever exceed the safe threshold and only briefly during rush hour.
The report states that one can only isolate the effects of particulates on morbidity (life expectancy) from a change in the levels over a significant period of time. This is because it is the lifetime dose that is important and because it impacts on a range of cardio vascular diseases and because there are other contributory causes. For example, the relocation of major industry from the town centres to the industrial estates around the peripheries was a major factor as has been the Clean Air act which saw a shift to smokeless fuels but primarily when the country transitioned from coal fired heating to gas and electric central heating.
But particulates exist in the air from a range of sources including both natural and anthropogenic.
I am no expert but I am presuming that the threshold levels relate, as I suggest above, to a lack of any significant statistical data on changes in morbidity when the level of particulates drops below the threshold level.
This leads me to suspect that the EPA has been egging the pudding with its declared
“EPA has officially concluded that this gas is a genotoxic carcinogen and that there is no exposure level below which it can be considered safe. In fact, EPA Administrator Jackson testified to Congress that of all deaths occurring in the United States, 1 in 4 “is attributable to PM2.5.”
This statement, at face value, suggests that a single exposure to a single particle at PM2.5 (and why PM2.5, much of the work uses PM10 as the marker particle size so far as I can recall, so this may be a significant factor) will cause some measurable loss of life expectancy.
This is interesting since the UK report emphasises that it is life time exposure that is important.
SO, will the EPA response be to stand by its original declaration as being scientifically robust and free of all politico-environmental cant, scaremongering and propaganda and plead guilty?
OR will they decide to dump the junk science and attempt to show that there were no real risks (or scientific meaning or benefit) from a series of experiments involving only a brief exposure (along with some sort of claims that the guinea pigs were fully aware of any purported risks)?
If their original declaration is true, what was the point of the experiment?
If not and it is life time doses at above the threshold levels that are significant, what was the point of the experiment? To what levels were the subjects exposed and for what duration for this to be a meaningful experiment however immoral under the terms of their own declared position on particulates?
PS the UK report also called for further studies to establish the impact of changing lifestyles on the data. It seems that much of the data relates to societies in which exposure to the outdoor environment was the norm but modern day living means that a substantial proportion of the population now lives in “clean air” office and factory environments and in air conditioned homes and travels in air conditioned cars with climate controls and pollen filters etc. suggesting that the traditional measurements of particulates in the atmosphere may no longer relate directly the true levels of exposure.
Yes, this is going to be interesting.
Perhaps then we can move on to question the EPAs other “scientific pronouncements” such as on CO2 etc. and of course Sox and NOX from shipping, now that the North American ECA is in place. This imposes low sulphur limits on vessels operating out to 200miles from land. Currently, and at the present permitted fuel sulphur levels, the premium for low sulphur fuel is at around $280 a ton on the west coast against $650 a ton base cost for fuel suitable to use in a global sea area. Permitted levels will reduce and further aggravate the problem. SInce the evidence from the UK report (moving factories from town centres to the peripheries) suggests that SOX has only a limited presence even a short distance from its source and since OSX per regulation from shipping was only 3% of anthropogenic burden, that this is an unnecessarily over bearing piece of legislation which will not cost 50cents on a pair of jeans or a couple of dollars on a TV set but considerably more. Fuel is between 60 and 80% of operating costs for shipping. Fuel prices have been rising steadily and dramatically even without this legislation so a near 50% premium isn’t going to be any 50cents surcharge. Oh, and at these prices it isn’t far off the $1030 a ton Houston price for Diesel. The short supply means many vessels will have to switch to diesel which will add between 2 and 11% to the CO2 emissions……
False premise, strawman erection or ???? (includes insufficient or too-restrictive a search criteria)
Not fully getting the inferred non-connection here …. but this does continue to raise the issue of what/how an ‘ethicist’ receives his/her training … now, possessing an MD might just be one step in the right direction though.
Let’s Google again and change what we use as search terms … shall we?
From this site (Doctors at Ft hood) I do find his name listed:
http://tx-fort-hood.doctors.at/dr/john-dunn-drjohndaledunnmd
and here:
http://www.docspot.com/d/TX/fort-hood/legal-medicine.html
Also, Googling ‘John Dale Dunn MD Ft Hood ethics teaching’ returns the following from this source:
Also from ACSH (American Council on Science and Health) Elects New Trustees and Scientific Advisors in the category of “Newly Elected ACSH Scientific and Policy Advisors” I find his name listed.
Might this raise the possibility that Dunn possesses perhaps at least some minimum necessary qualifications to serve as an ‘ethicist’?
.
@ur momisugly _Jim on September 25, 2012 at 10:35 am:
Now Google for just “john dunn ft hood”, and find…
http://heartland.org/dr-john-dale-dunn-md-jd
Etc, long list of accomplishments and credentials. So both a doctor and a lawyer, well versed in medical issues and their legal implications and complications, even extending to military concerns.
Yeah, I’d say that qualifies him to be a “medical ethicist”.
You take all the fun out of my trying to ‘lead a witness’ (e.g nutso fasst), spoil sport ;).
(The good poker player/questioning attorney doesn’t show all his cards all the time …)
.
Gene Selkov says:
September 23, 2012 at 8:10 pm
“The really dramatic part of the story is that they have been telling us for umpteen years that an experiment like this would kill a person, and now Steve has caught them lying. Either it is an atrocious Nazi-style experiment (we know it’s not, but it is according to EPA) or EPA has been lying about the hazards of PM2.5 to uphold a regulation that is tantamount to extortion.
It’s checkmate, EPA.”
Exactly, the EPA is being put in the position of being found to either being guilty of intentionally exposing people to a hazardous substance or that they exaggerated the hazard. Of course, they exaggerated the hazard and this just happens to be a lesser evil than the evil they’re being accused of perpetrating. They’ll need to confess to exaggerating the hazard in order to clear themselves of perpetrating Nazi-like human experimentation. Your lungs have cilia for a reason, to remove PM. This is nonsense and the EPA knows it. Hopefully, they’ll have to admit it in court.
So let me get this straight. The EPA either needs to stick by its statement that PMx is ‘dangerous’ and acknowledge that it did human experimentation on a known dangerous substance or retract its statement that PMx is dangerous.
Ouch. Checkmate.
Alkylation says:
September 24, 2012 at 5:32 pm
” I’ll take the word of an attorney who has to prove such things over the word of an activist. – Anthony”
Or, you could actually go look at the paper (linked to conveniently from the lawsuit as reference number 1: http://www.smw.ch/content/smw-2012-13597/) which states, “DE is introduced into the exposure chamber (1.83 m x 1.83 m x 2.44 m) after a 1:30 dilution with clean and humidified air to yield a feedback-regulated concentration of 100 to 300 μg/m3 (fig. 1B).”
++++++++++++++
Holly crap. When I first read this article I assumed that the EPA ACCIDENTALLY pumped diesel exhaust into a chamber, by having an air intake too close to the loading bay.
However, it is nothing of the sort. The experiment PURPOSELY pumped in diesel exhaust. Knowing full well that it could cause death – as per the EPA sworn testimony to congress. Instead they told the test subjects that it would only cause temporary discomfort that would pass in a couple of hours.
Imagine if you or I rigged up something like this. We would be in jail for attempted murder. Pumping exhaust fumes into a room for people to breathe. One law for those in power. Another for the rest of us.
Isn’t this the sort of issue the candidate Obama should address?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_monoxide_poisoning
Carbon monoxide poisoning is the most common type of fatal poisoning in many countries.[3] Historically, it was also commonly used as a method to commit suicide, usually by deliberately inhaling the exhaust fumes of a running car engine. Modern automobiles, even with electronically-controlled combustion and catalytic converters, can still produce levels of carbon monoxide which will kill if enclosed within a garage or if the tailpipe is obstructed (for example, by snow) and exhaust gas cannot escape normally. Carbon monoxide poisoning has also been implicated as the cause of apparent haunted houses; symptoms such as delirium and hallucinations have led people suffering poisoning to think they have seen ghosts or to believe their house is haunted.[4]
johanna says:
September 25, 2012 at 5:37 am
ps. I’ll also note that 2 hours at 100-300 micrograms is less than 24 hours at 35 micrograms, which is the legal 24 hour standard for PM2.5.
—————————————————-
Right. So, drinking a bottle of tequila in 2 hours is the same as drinking it over 24 hours?
+++++++++++
drink enough water in a short enough time and this is a lethal dose. the same amount over a longer period of time is beneficial.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication
Water, just like any other substance, can be considered a poison when over-consumed in a specific period of time.
ferdberple said on September 25, 2012 at 6:34 pm
But Ferd, think of the children.
Thanks for the bio on Dunn, kadaka. Not sure why Jim wants to “lead a witness” or what I’m a witness to, but it sure helps the search if you already know the middle name and place of employment, eh? Note that “professor” didn’t help with my searches, nor is that title found in the links. And whether Dunn can be accurately described as “medical ethicist” doesn’t change my point about the article.
Still no help with confirmation of Lisa Jackson’s testimony, mouth-breathing fumes through a plastic tube for hours, or exhaust from an idling diesel truck.
There is another point.
It isn’t simply that they must either admit that their declaration (and the dependent legislation etc.) is fundamentally wrong, or accept that they conducted inhuman experiments but that they must admit that the declaration was known to be wrong for some considerable time. Enough time to know that the experiment was perfectly safe. That wouldn’t be the day before but some time before.
So the question then is: why have they allowed this declaration and its dependent legislation to stand for so long and to still be standing?
This now becomes a game of scapegoats.
IT depends on how militant their support for junk science is.
It depends on who knew what and when.
It means that if they can if they can find a suitable scapegoat for the experiment and wash their hands of all knowledge that they can keep their junk science.
WE might have thought that CRU and Prof Jones would necessarily have to be taken out at dawn and shot along with similar actions in the US.
But it didn’t happen.
ON the other hand, this is a lawsuit.
What we may hope is that it will send out a signal that there is a limit. We may even hope that the US government will decide to act and to purge its organisations of the militant eco-activists who are perverting the science for their own anti-democratic ends.
And pigs might fly.
Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus
Too much vested interest in denying falsehoods. My guess is a scapegoat for the experiments who will be cast into the outer darkness in order to protect the junk science. Sad.
Friends:
I am surprised at the doubts about this case when previous WUWT articles aroused no such questions. For example on 30 April 2012 there was a WUWT article titled ‘The EPA and undisclosed human experimentation’ which reported the experiments cited in the ATI court case. That article can be read at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/30/the-epa-and-undisclosed-human-experimentation/
In that thread I wrote the following comment which supports the hyperbole used in the above article. The point I then made – and quote below in this post – is valid; i.e.
the US can expect a retort about hypocrisy whenever it comments on the human rights in another country unless those responsible for the experiments are prosecuted.
Hence, I am pleased to see the above report that the ATI has instituted the reported court case against the EPA.
My comment (which I quote below) induced several commentators in that thread to assert that atrocities are acceptable when conducted by certain nations, notably the US and Israel. The ATI clearly understands that immoral acts are not excusable on the basis of WHO commits them.
Richard
***************
richardscourtney says:
April 30, 2012 at 12:46 pm
Friends:
I am commenting on this item because it has international significance. I am not commenting on US politics (I find right-wing politics distasteful and all US politics is right-wing).
The US often berates other nations for inadequate provision of human rights. In this case, the experiments provide a prima facie case of an agency of the US government acting contrary to international law by depriving US citizens of their human rights. Therefore, the US can expect a retort about hypocrisy whenever it comments on the human rights in another country unless those responsible for the experiments are prosecuted.
I explain the apparent breach of international law as follows.
Contrary to some above comments in this thread, the Nuremberg Code, the Declaration of Helsinki, and the CIOMS code are ethical norms and are not enshrined in International Law.
However, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) conducted a study of international humanitarian customary law which provides a report that identifies 161 rules of such law. It says:
“Customary international law, on the other hand, derives from “a general practice accepted as law.” Such practice can be found in official accounts of military operations but is also reflected in a variety of other official documents, including military manuals, national legislation and case law. The requirement that this practice be “accepted as law” is often referred to as “opinion juris.” This characteristic sets practices required by law apart from practices followed as a matter of policy, for example.”
A characteristic of Customary International Law (CIL) is that norms can be identified at the stage at which they are emergent. According to the study by the Red Cross, the status of CIL has been attained by rules that prohibit the following acts:
* Genocide;
* Slavery or slave trade;
* The murder or causing the disappearance of individuals;
* Torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment;
* Prolonged arbitrary detention;
* Systematic racial discrimination; and
* A consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.
Inflicting an experiment upon a person when it is suspected the experiment will cause physical harm to that person is clearly “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment”. Hence, the experiments reported in the above article provide a prima facie case of a crime according to international law.
Richard
Roger Sowell says:
September 24, 2012 at 3:46 pm
The complaint as filed may be viewed here:
http://www.atinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/2012-09-21-Complaint-as-Filed.pdf
=======
Thanks!
Witness for the defense …
.
I will lay you odds that within two years (or one) even (as this case begins to loom closer to a ‘trial date’) that the EPA ‘recants all’ on this given what seems to be an inevitable ‘turn of administrations’ this fall (leading to a new EPA head et al) … a new admin contrary to what the polls displayed by some organizations seem to indicate ATTM and in accord with what happened to Jimmy Carter (recall the Misery Index?; highest under Carter and presently the #2 record is held by the present administration); having lived though the Carter era, I can see this happening.
I would also like to take this opportunity to express my thanks for your taking the time to post on this issue and making a worthwhile contribution. Kudos.
.
Jim says:
If requesting substantiation for the claims is all it takes to be a witness for the defense, this case is in trouble.
Ha ha .. one anonymous man’s opinion; BTW, I think ‘democracy will be safe’ so long as not-so-fast doesn’t make it to deliberations as one of the 12 jurors or the six alternates …
.