According to the latest study released by the Health Effects Institute, air pollution is the fifth leading risk factor for mortality worldwide.
Americans rely on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set pollution regulations to protect our health. However, these regulations, based on hundreds of objective, peer-reviewed scientific publications have been threatened by the current administration. Last spring, the EPA proposed a rule that would have excluded vital health effects data when considering science in rule making. Fortunately, the policy was tabled last fall. However, this week, an article in The Conversation described recent recommendations submitted to EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler that propose “new and dangerous ways of interpreting findings on the health effects of air pollution.”
Jim Schwab, a senior research associate at the University at Albany’s Atmospheric Sciences Research Center, is available to discuss the critical need for objective and unbiased scientific research in the formulation of EPA’s air pollution policies and regulations.
“The EPA has been made considerably less independent through the appointment of many industry-affiliated members. While some or all of these members may be perfectly qualified in some respects, there is the impression of ‘foxes guarding the henhouse.’ These insidious efforts to undermine objective and unbiased science should be of concern to all. We all need to be aware, worried and engaged.”
Schwab has worked in the areas of gas phase spectroscopy and chemical kinetics, gas phase free radical chemistry, stratospheric ozone depletion, instrument development and evaluation, tropospheric chemistry and air pollution chemistry. His credentials include more than 80 peer-reviewed publications and more than 75 conference presentations.
Learn more by viewing his University expert bio.
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