Researchers in heavily drilled Pennsylvania are adding to a body of evidence suggesting links between the natural gas industry and certain health problems.
In the cancer study, researchers found that children who lived within 1 mile of a well had five to seven times the chance of developing lymphoma compared with children who lived 5 miles or farther from a well. That equates to 60 to 84 lymphoma cases per million children living near wells, versus 12 per million among kids living farther away.
An extremely rare form of bone cancer, Ewing sarcoma, had been diagnosed in dozens of children and young adults in a heavily drilled area outside Pittsburgh, and those families were instrumental in pushing Wolf to commission the study. Edward Ketyer is a retired pediatrician who sat on an advisory board for the study. He has said he expected that the studies would be consistent with previous research showing the “closer you live to fracking activity, the increased risk you have a being sick with a variety of illnesses.”
A number of states have strengthened their laws around fracking and waste disposal over the past decade. However, researchers have repeatedly said that regulatory shortcomings leave an incomplete picture of the amount of toxic substances the industry emits into the air, injects into the ground or produces as waste.
The advent of high-volume hydraulic fracturing combined with horizontal drilling miles deep in the ground over the past two decades transformed the United States into a worldwide oil and gas superpower.
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