Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) researchers exposed mice to gun smoke to see if using firearms could cause “acute lung injury” or “other longer-term disease,” in a study funded by multiple federal agencies.
EPA researchers, to justify their study, pointed out that firearm use in the United States is common and that the effects of inhaling smoke from firearms are not well understood. Researchers found handgun smoke did not induce lung toxicity in mice whereas rifle smoke did.
EPA researchers collected smoke from a 9mm handgun and a rifle chambered in 5.56×45 NATO at an Army research lab, trapped pollutants from the gun smoke in a filter and then administered those pollutants to mice after researchers anesthetized them.(RELATED: EPA Reauthorizes Using ‘Cyanide Bombs’ On Coyotes And Wild Dogs, Activists Complain)
After exposing the mice to smoke pollutants, they tracked their breathing for an hour and then euthanized them. Once researchers euthanized the mice, they collected blood from their hearts and fluid from their lungs to be analyzed.
The Department of Defense, the EPA and the National Institutes of Health funded the experiment. Six of the nine researchers on the project were affiliated with the EPA, and one was affiliated with the U.S. Army Research Laboratory in Adelphi, Maryland.
The EPA ran a similar experiment to study the impact of climate change-induced wildfires on people eating unhealthy diets. To accomplish this, another team of researchers placed rats in warm cages, fed them high-cholesterol diets and exposed them to wildfire smoke.
Both studies asserted that they do not necessarily reflect the views of the EPA.
The White Coat Waste Project, a nonprofit opposed to wasteful government spending on animal experiments, was the first to uncover these studies.
(Kirill Kurashov/Shutterstock)
The Trump administration initiated a plan to phase out animal testing in the EPA by 2050, aiming to cut the practice by 30% by 2025. The EPA, however, scrapped the plans, according to documents obtained by The Washington Times.
The EPA instead will determine its use of animal test subjects by applying “the best available science.”
“I’m proud of the progress we’ve made but troubled that the Biden Administration appears to be rolling back common sense reforms that help animals, people and the environment,” Republican California Rep. Ken Calvert said to White Coat Waste regarding the EPA reversing the Trump administration’s phase-out of animal testing.
The DOD, NIH and the EPA did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.
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