"Fired Scientists Blast EPA Soot Standard In Medical Journal"

"Scientists who served on a now-disbanded EPA advisory panel are again accusing the agency of slighting public health, this time in the pages of a top national medical publication.

'We unequivocally and unanimously concluded that the current PM2.5 standards do not adequately protect public health,' the 19 scientists, most of them based at colleges and universities, wrote in an article published online late yesterday in The New England Journal of Medicine.

The epidemiologic evidence for stricter standards 'is robust across diverse study designs in different populations and locations and with the use of a variety of statistical approaches,' the scientists added, noting that an official EPA risk assessment backs the conclusion that 'the risk of premature death is unacceptably high' under the current limits on soot, more technically known as fine particles, or PM2.5."

Sean Reilly reports for Greenwire June 11, 2020.

Source: Greenwire, 06/12/2020