Harvard officials, hospital leaders call on EPA to withdraw ‘transparency’ rule, which they say would bar use of best science data
Nearly 100 leaders and faculty members at Harvard and its affiliated hospitals have signed a letter calling on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to withdraw its proposed rule on scientific “transparency,” saying that the change would drastically limit the scientific and medical knowledge that underlies a host of EPA regulations that protect human health. The letter’s 96 signatories include Harvard President Larry Bacow, the deans of Harvard Medical School (HMS) and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and the presidents of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Massachusetts Eye and Ear. It says that the EPA’s push to require studies to reveal the material that supports their conclusions would bar the best available science from being considered in the regulatory process. “It does not get at what they’re trying to do,” said Francine Laden, professor of environmental epidemiology at the Harvard Chan...