Congressional committee subpoenas EPA for pollution study data

Science : In 1997 the Environmental Protection Agency revised the Clean Air Act and implemented new air pollution policies based on the 1993 results of the Six Cities Study . The study, which measured the health of 8000 Americans for more than a decade, tied air pollution directly to some deaths. Now the House Science Committee, chaired by US Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX), has filed a formal subpoena for the data behind the study—the first such request in 20 years. Smith has repeatedly requested the data from the EPA, as well as that of a related study by the American Cancer Society, which he says he will provide to “independent” scientists for evaluation. The EPA has resisted providing the base data because that would violate the confidentiality agreements that the participants signed. C. Arden Pope of Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah—one of the study’s authors—believes that even removing directly identifying information such as names and addresses will not provide adequate protection because the data could still be compared with public records to identify the participants.