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Pruitt axes EPA research on toxic chemicals and children’s health

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt is eliminating a key grant program that studies the health effects of children’s exposure to environmental chemicals. The National Center for Environmental Research (NCER), which most notably funded studies on environmental impacts to children’s health through its Science to Achieve Results (STAR) program, will be dissolved and its employees dispersed elsewhere within the agency. STAR has been behind crucial studies, such as one that discovered the link between prenatal exposure to flame retardants and IQ deficiencies in children. It also sponsored research on air pollution, the impact of climate change on air quality, and the effects of nanoparticles—just more inconvenient health and environmental science swept under the rug by Trump's EPA.

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