

A lawsuit filed against the Environmental Protection Agency accuses the EPA of conducting experiments in which human beings were exposed to potentially lethal concentrations of diesel exhaust. Participants were paid $12 an hour to breathe in heavy doses of particulate matter called PM 2.5 – that is, particles that are smaller than 2.5 mircons.



According to EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, “Particulate matter causes premature death. It’s directly causal to dying sooner than you should.”



The concentration used in the EPA experiment was 21 times greater than the legal limit.



A recently published doctoral dissertation describes U.S. Army experiments that occurred for several years beginning nearly sixty years ago in St. Louis. As the Army Times reports, “the Army used motorized blowers atop a low-income housing high-rise, at schools and from the backs of station wagons to send a potentially dangerous compound [called zinc cadmium sulfide] into the already-hazy air in predominantly black areas ofSt. Louis.” Many residents of the affected areas suspect that the secret tests led to a spike in cancer rates, including unusually high rates of childhood cancer.



German and Japanese officials who conducted experiments of this kind during World War II were prosecuted –and executed – as war criminals.







