The administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency decided this week to bar scientists from including data on World War II Nazi experiments in a forthcoming report on a deadly toxic gas, an EPA spokesman said Thursday.
The gas, known as phosgene, is used in manufacturing plastics and pesticides, the New York Times reported Monday. It had been deployed as a poisonous gas in World War I by the Germans, said John Kasper, the agency spokesman.
He said EPA Administrator Lee Thomas received a letter from agency scientists Monday questioning whether it was ethical to use data from Nazi doctors, and that Thomas decided later that day to exclude the information. Kasper said he could not recall any case where Nazi scientific data has been used in an EPA study.
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