Modern air, Phalen, Trumps new EPA advisor said in 2012, is a little too clean for optimum health

[riversedge]

Trump’s new EPA adviser actually thinks pollution is good for children

https://shareblue.com/trumps-new-epa-adviser-actually-thinks-pollution-is-good-for-children/



By Dan Desai Martin | November 4, 2017

One of Donald Trump's new environmental advisers believes that the air is "too clean" for healthy children. Sadly, a pro-smog position is par for the course for this administration.
Donald Trump and his Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt
(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Taking a deep breath of clean air is apparently bad for your health, according to one of Donald Trump’s newest “environmental” advisers.

Robert Phalen, an air pollution researcher at the University of California, Irvine, is one of 17 new White House appointees to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Scientific Advisory Board, wants to make sure that the air kids breathe has more pollution and toxins in it. For health.

“Modern air,” Phalen said in 2012, “is a little too clean for optimum health.”

While Phalen will be advising the EPA about science, he is apparently unaware of statistics about health issues like asthma. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 in 13 people have asthma, and in 2013, the illness accounted for more than 13.8 million missed school days.

Notably, the rates for black children (13.4 percent) are nearly twice that of white children (7.4 percent), making combating the air pollution that contributes to and exacerbates the illness an issue of racial justice as well as good environmental stewardship.

Phalen’s galling views will help him fit right in on the the Scientific Advisory Board. The board is led by Michael Honeycutt, the top toxicologist at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality who once “co-authored a study published in an air and waste management magazine which asserted that the health benefits associated with having more stringent air quality standards are overblown.”
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[Angry Dragon]

1. A swamp is better than a cesspool

[spanone]

2. trump has brought idiocracy to all of his appointees.