Trump Cut Funding to EPA Center, Report Confirms It's Full of 'Junk Science' Anyway
Leftists and liberals cried bloody murder when President Donald Trump’s administration cut funding to the EPA’s Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research Centers, but a new report shows that the president may not have gone far enough.
When the Trump administration first slashed funding to these college-based centers, the left rolled out their classic “think of the children” shtick.
The Environmental Working Group slammed the decision as part of “Trump’s war on children’s health,” before warning about the potential neurological damage kids now face.
Others covered the news while lamenting the future downfall of children’s health research.
As for the actual research that is actually being defunded, an extensive report from the Competitive Enterprise Institute shows that much of it was either junk science or shameless environmental activism masquerading as groundbreaking children’s health science.
“Lost in this melee is the fact that these centers do not have a measurable impact on children’s health or add much to the body of research on the topic,” the report reads. “In fact, many of the centers simply waste taxpayer dollars while funding junk science and environmental activism.”
“Rather than simply cutting the EPA’s half of the funding, the Trump administration should go further and eliminate all funding for these centers and investigate similar NIEHS grant programs.”
One brochure that was produced as a result of the funding warns families about toxic chemicals, suggesting they remove their shoes before entering a home, and switch to mopping instead of sweeping while cleaning.
The brochure also warns against using flea and tick collars for pets, a move that “may mean more risk to both pets and humans,” according to the CEI’s findings.
“Fleas carry serious diseases,” the report reads, “including typhus and the bubonic plague, while ticks can transmit Lyme disease, Babesiosis (similar to malaria), Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and many other diseases that affect pets and humans.”
Instead of backing up its suggestions with science, the brochure instead urges readers to call their representatives and “get involved with groups working to prevent pollution.”
In another instance, a worrying statistic published by one of the centers claims that “approximately 1,600 premature births per year in the U.S. are attributable to air pollution.”
The number was achieved by the center’s citation of a biased activist researcher who used a certain kind of pollutant that has not been definitively proven to cause premature birth.
The same researcher admits that “some may argue that the scientific evidence for air pollution has not reached the threshold for causation.”
Environmental Working Group spokesman Alex Formuzis defended the program, saying he would expect “nothing less from the flat Earth swarm at CEI.”
“The program has produced invaluable research into the connections between toxic chemicals and asthma, ADHD, obesity, autism and cancer in children,” he wrote in an email to the Washington Times.
“The work of these children’s health centers has led to restrictions on the proximity of schools to major roadways in California, federal limits on arsenic levels in rice used to make baby food and New York City’s decision to phase out diesel buses.”
The CEI’s report is full of examples of worryingly bad science and conclusions pulled from mere assumptions. The findings cover junk science like this as well as the environmental activism that seems to be behind much of the taxpayer-funded “research.”
While Trump’s slashing of funding for these programs has reduced their capacity to publish bad science, he needs to consider defunding them completely to keep environmental activists out of the taxpayer’s pocket.
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