Researchers studying public health in southwestern Pennsylvania have linked unconventional natural gas development to childhood lymphoma, slightly lower birth weights, and worsened asthma while the natural gas is being produced.
A team from the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health and the Pennsylvania Department of Health presented the data at a public hearing on Aug. 15. The researchers faced various criticisms from an audience dominated by local environmental activists, parents, journalists, and others worried that the investigation may have understated the health risks of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
“Much of the public health literature has not necessarily kept up with the effects of the rapid expansion of unconventional natural gas drilling, especially in southwest Pennsylvania,” said James Fabisiak of Pittsburgh’s School of Public Health.
He and his colleagues conducted three studies on the health effects of unconventional natural gas development and other environmental risk factors. The publications cap off a four-year investigation that began with a $2.5 million grant from then-Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf.
While the investigations encompassed data from Allegheny County, home of the city of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh residents were excluded.
“We thought that being a large, large population center, they were not going to be particularly representative of the population in the rest of rural southwest Pennsylvania. And there’s actually very little unconventional natural gas drilling there,” Mr. Fabisiak said.
When looking at individuals who lived 10 miles or fewer from a natural gas well or wells, scientists identified a strong association between the natural gas production phase and worsened asthma, as measured by visits to the emergency room, hospitalizations, and intensified symptoms of the disease.
But that link didn’t exist during fracking, drilling, or well preparation.
Residing within a mile of one or more wells made children five to seven times more likely to develop lymphoma, a rare form of cancer in children.
“Data suggests that the highest risk was for those living the closest and those that had the highest density of activity,” Mr. Fabisiak said.
The researchers found no association between fracking and the other childhood cancers they studied.
Finally, they linked maternal proximity to fracking to what Mr. Fabisiak called a “very small effect on fetal growth.” Babies born to mothers within 10 miles of unconventional natural grass drilling were 20 to 40 grams lighter.
“This would likely not usually be a significant health risk,” he said.
While the study didn’t link prematurity at birth to fracking, it did identify a connection with concentrations of particulate matter in the air, in line with other research.
Skepticism
To activists and others at the meeting, however, the research fell short.Janice Blannock, a Washington County resident whose son died of Ewing’s sarcoma, broke down in tears as she asked why the investigators hadn’t directly studied levels of radium and other radioactive waste produced during hydraulic fracturing.
“Okay, it’s naturally occurring in the ground, but when you’re bringing it to the surface and spreading it all over our communities—and our kids are dying from Ewing’s sarcoma and brain cancers and lymphomas and every other [expletive] thing—why wasn’t it included in your study?” she asked.
“You raise a very, very valid point. The difficulties in conducting the kind of study you would like to see in a retrospective manner is that I really have no idea how much radioactivity each control [group member] and each cancer patient has been exposed to in their past. I don’t have a record of that. If there was a way to think about doing some sort of measure, I would do it,” Mr. Fabisiak said.
“Somebody better figure out a way,” Ms. Blannock responded.
Dr. Ned Ketyer, a former pediatrician who is president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, said he thought the findings on asthma were “a bombshell.”
“Asthma is not a mild disease. Asthma is a very serious disease,” Dr. Ketyer said.
Justin Nobel, a science reporter with Rolling Stone magazine, asked if the studies had examined the connection between drinking water and health problems.
“It was not taken into account,” Mr. Fabisiak said, adding that he did not have enough retrospective data on the past drinking water of study participants.
“I could go out and measure it today. ... But that would not give me a measure of what it was when their cancer was developing,” he continued.
Mr. Nobel encouraged Mr. Fabisiak to “take a tent and pitch it next to a well during completion.”
Fracking and Childhood Cancer
Previous research on the health effects of fossil fuel development, including work focused on hydraulic fracturing, hasn’t always shown a clear connection with childhood cancer.The Colorado researchers didn’t establish a link between another blood cancer, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and proximity to oil and gas wells.
