The Environmental Protection Agency closed its Human Research Facility in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, during summer 2025, eliminating a unique laboratory that studied how air pollution affects human health through controlled exposure studies. This closure occurred months before a new health strategy from the Make America Healthy Again Commission recommended that EPA and the National Institutes of Health study air quality impacts on children's health.
The MAHA Commission Recommendations
The Make America Healthy Again Commission released a strategy document on September 10, 2025, containing 128 recommendations for improving health and addressing chronic diseases. According to reporting by Ariel Wittenberg for Politico, the strategy specifically states that EPA and the National Institutes of Health "will study air quality impacts on children's health and utilize existing research programs to improve data collection and analysis."
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin unveiled the strategy at a press conference, with Zeldin stating the work would include "the work of our chemicals, air and water programs." Both officials referenced using "gold standard science" to fulfill the report's objectives.
At the announcement, Zeldin stated: "Protecting human health and the environment while powering America's comeback isn't just about serving Americans today, it's about ensuring future generations inherit clean air, water, and the foundation for healthy lives."
The Human Research Facility's Unique Capabilities
The Chapel Hill facility represented one of the only laboratories in the United States capable of conducting controlled human exposure studies to air pollution. Laura Kate Bender, vice president of nationwide advocacy and public policy at the American Lung Association, explained: "It was one of the only places in the country where you could put humans in a chamber and measure their reaction to ozone. Those studies have long informed our understanding of how much of these pollutants are safe to breathe."
The laboratory contained nine sealed chambers where volunteers agreed to exposure to air pollution at levels matching those found in major cities around the world. EPA researchers monitored volunteers' vital signs and collected blood samples, enabling them to uncover specific information about how different air pollutants—including ozone, vehicle exhaust, and wildfire smoke—impact human health.
Before the laboratory's establishment in the 1990s, epidemiologists could broadly link increased deaths to high levels of particulate matter in air. The Human Research Facility's controlled studies helped connect specific pollutants to specific health effects. For example, research at the facility linked exposure to particulate matter pollution to increased heart rates in people with preexisting cardiac conditions.
Research Applications and Regulatory Impact
The laboratory's research informed multiple aspects of public health protection. Studies conducted at the facility helped shape air quality alerts that notify the public when pollution levels pose health risks. The research also underpinned major federal air regulations, including those limiting smog-forming emissions.
The controlled exposure methodology allowed researchers to isolate specific pollutant effects that would be difficult or impossible to determine through observational studies alone. By exposing volunteers to known quantities of specific pollutants in controlled conditions, scientists could definitively establish causal relationships between exposures and physiological responses.
Betsy Southerland, who worked at EPA's Office of Science and Technology for 30 years and now volunteers for the Environmental Protection Network, stated: "We had this state-of-the-art facility, and they canceled the lease."
Broader Research Program Changes
Beyond closing the Human Research Facility, EPA moved to dissolve its Office of Research and Development during summer 2025. This action involved terminating a large proportion of staff and relocating others to a new Office of Applied Science and Environmental Solutions within the Office of the Administrator.
EPA press secretary Brigit Hirsch responded to questions about how EPA could fulfill the MAHA report's directives without these programs, stating: "We are confident EPA has the resources needed to accomplish the agency's core mission of protecting human health and the environment and fulfill all statutory obligations."
Hirsch added that the new applied science and environmental solutions office "will align research and put science at the forefront of the agency's rulemakings."
Regulatory Changes Affecting Air Emissions
Concurrent with the research program changes, EPA proposed modifications to regulations controlling emissions of various pollutants. The agency announced plans to rescind multiple air pollution limits established during previous administrations, including regulations controlling mercury emissions, smog-forming ozone, and fine particulate matter.
A carbon rule finalized in 2023 would have prevented an estimated 1,200 premature deaths, 870 hospital and emergency room visits, 1,900 new asthma diagnoses, and 360,000 asthma attacks in 2035 by limiting pollution of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, along with fine particulate pollution and smog-forming nitrogen oxides, according to EPA estimates at the time of finalization.
EPA announced it would rescind that regulation in March 2025, along with 11 other air pollution limits. One regulation targeted for rescission limited mercury emissions from power plants. If it had remained in place, that regulation would have reduced emissions of the neurotoxin by more than 16 percent by 2028, according to analysis by EPA scientists.
Scientific Community Perspectives
Phil Landrigan, an environmental epidemiologist and pediatrician who leads Boston College's Global Public Health Program, noted the extensive research foundation supporting mercury emission regulations. "All of that is well-established science, there is nothing new there," he stated regarding the existing body of evidence on mercury's health impacts including increased asthma risk, heart disease, stroke, and brain damage.
Natural Resources Defense Council senior attorney John Walke characterized air quality and its health impacts as "one of the most researched and studied and reported phenomena across the world."
Laura Kate Bender of the American Lung Association summarized the situation: "There will be more air pollution to study, and fewer funds and staff with which to do it."
Take Control of Your Indoor Air
Air pollution research and regulatory frameworks continue evolving as administrations change and priorities shift. While you cannot control outdoor pollution sources or federal policy directions, you can take immediate action to protect your family's indoor air quality.
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