| | | | | | |

Anti-Drilling Activist Bad-mouths Fracking at Murrysville Hearing

A paid political activist who is not a doctor but works for the so-called Physicians for Social Responsibility (left wing group), told a hearing in Murrysville (Westmoreland County), PA on Wednesday that she could not prove fracking leads to negative health affects on those living near the activity, but in the very next breath she essentially said it does, saying there’s a “strong correlation” between fracking an ill health. Her proof? A list of Big Green-paid for “health studies” (propaganda campaigns).
Continue reading

| | | | |

“Study” Says PA Fracking Makes Pregnant Women Depressed

Another so-called “study” has appeared bashing Pennsylvania Marcellus fracking. This one is co-authored by a global warming Kool Aid drinker affiliated with the Post Carbon Institute, making the claim pregnant women in Pennsylvania have a 4% higher chance of becoming anxious and/or depressed if they live near fracking activities. How these people are not laughed out of any room they walk into is beyond us.
Continue reading

| | |

Steel Nation CEO Pushes Back on Post-Gazette Cancer Stories

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette continues to get a lot of negative reaction to its grossly irresponsible series of stories attempting to connect shale drilling to several cases of childhood cancer in southwestern Pennsylvania (see Response to Pittsburgh Newspaper Smear Campaign re Child Cancer). The founder and CEO of Steel Nation, a company deeply involved in the Marcellus/Utica shale industry, is the latest to push back against the Post-Gazette‘s irresponsible series.
Continue reading

| | | | |

Response to Pittsburgh Newspaper Smear Campaign re Child Cancer

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette newspaper has engaged in a months-long smear campaign to imply the shale industry in southwestern PA is guilty of causing a “cluster” of rare childhood cancers–even though there’s an old uranium dump in the same vicinity as those cancer clusters (see Antis Continue Attempt to Tie Childhood Cancer to SWPA Fracking). It’s apparent the Post-Gazette is trying to sell newspapers. Taking down the shale industry would be a bonus for the lib Dems that run the Post-Gazette.
Continue reading

| | | | | |

Antis Continue Attempt to Tie Childhood Cancer to SWPA Fracking

A group of enviro-Nazis has sunk to a new low in their holy mission to block Marcellus Shale drilling. A group of colluding Big Green groups along with sympathetic (and sycophantic) “reporters” (i.e propagandists) from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette are exploiting the pain and suffering of southwestern PA families of children who have cancer in their attempt to stop shale drilling. It’s disgusting and sick.
Continue reading

| | | |

Pittsburgh Media Attempts to Link Shale Drilling to Childhood Cancer

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette seems to be doing its best to tie what it calls a “cancer cluster” to local shale drilling in the region. We first noticed a developing story about a potential cluster of rare Ewing sarcoma cancer cases among children in the Pittsburgh region a few months ago, when Pittsburgh media first began to report on it.
Continue reading

| | |

Fake Research Says PA Fracking Gives You Herpes & Kidney Stones

Every year or two another fraudulent piece of “research” is released supposedly showing a connection between fracking and health issues. Last March Yale released a nonsense study that says fracking causes STDs (see Yale Study Claims Ohio Utica Fracking Causes STDs). Another such jewel has just been published. This time PA Marcellus drilling causes “skin, genital, and urinary diseases.”
Continue reading

| | | | |

Other Voices at Shale Insight: Utica, Pipelines, Public Health

EPA Chief Andrew Wheeler wasn’t the only speaker at yesterday’s Shale Insight event in Pittsburgh (see EPA Head Andrew Wheeler Addresses Shale Insight re “New EPA”). There were a number of other sessions addressing issues from the technical to the philosophical. A speaker from XTO Energy said the Utica Shale is only just getting started and the potential of the Utica “enormous.” A panel spoke to the critical nature of pipelines and addressed the issue of how we can better “tell our story” to the public with respect to pipelines. And another panel discussed whether and how natural gas development is affecting public health. Here’s a few select reports.
Continue reading

| | | | | |

SWPA Farmer Claims Shale Damaged Cattle Health, Reproduction

A farmer who raises Angus beef cattle in East Millsboro (Fayette County), PA, in the southwestern corner of the state, claims that a shale well drilled on his property in 2010 by Atlas Energy (now owned by Chevron) created a “seep” that is affecting the health of his cattle. A seep is a place where water/liquids leak out of the ground. Soon after the well was drilled the farmer began to have trouble with his yearling heifers not getting pregnant. For those grazing near the well, only half got pregnant. The farmer then kept his herd from grazing near the well and noticed the pregnancy rate went from half to 100%–except for those who had previously grazed near the well. They continue to struggle with no pregnancies and miscarriages. All of which sounds like conclusive evidence that there is a problem with the well leaking something into the environment. However, both Chevron and the state Dept. of Environmental Protection have investigated and have not found any evidence that the well is impacting the health of the farmer’s herd. What do you do in a case like that?…
Continue reading

| | | |

Yale Study Claims Ohio Utica Fracking Causes STDs

What a shame that a university with one of the best reputations in the world, Yale, has sunk this low–to pedal yet another so-called study that claims where there is fracking in the Ohio Utica, there’s also a higher incidence of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) like gonorrhea and chlamydia. This isn’t the first “fracking causes STDs” study. Antis have issued these “studies” for years (see MDN coverage here). This latest study by Yale “researchers” was published in an online journal with no standards, PLOS ONE. Other bought-and-paid-for anti-fracking “science” has been published by the PLOS ONE research-mill (see a list of other fake studies bashing shale appearing in PLOS ONE). PLOS ONE is a favorite place to publish research that can’t meet the rigorous review process of real journals. Here’s the latest substandard anti-drilling “research” from the Yale School of Public Health…
Continue reading

| | | |

NEPA Republican Lawmaker Intros Marcellus Health Registry Bill

In 2011, then-Gov. Tom Corbett’s Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission filed a final report with 96 recommendations (see PA Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission Final Report with 96 Recommendations). One of those recommendations is to establish a population-based health registry. The aim would be to collect and evaluate clinical data from health care providers and monitor citizens living near drilling sites. Sounded good to us then, still sounds good now. One of the early attempts at this came from the private sector. Geisinger Health Systems proposed to use data already in the files to begin tracking potential issues related to shale drilling (see PA Marcellus Health Study by Geisinger Turns into Data Warehouse). But as we later learned, Geisinger was in it for the money (can’t blame them). They wanted $24 million and didn’t get it, so that effort flopped. A Republican State legislator from Scranton, PA, Rep. Karen Boback, is attempting to reignite interest in the health registry issue. On Monday, Rep. Boback introduced House Bill (HB) 2055 (full copy below) that would establish a health registry to collect health-related data from those living near shale drilling. The PA Dept. of Health would be the agency tasked with the data collection. Rep. Boback figures it will take $1 million per year to fund the initiative, far less than what Geisinger wanted…
Continue reading

| | | |

New “Marcellus Workers Cause STDs” So-Called Research Study

Those evil, nasty frackers just LOVE having sex. Sex, sex, sex, all the time. Everybody knows it. When shale workers arrive in town, the incidence of gonorrhea (i.e. “the clap”) goes up. So says a laughable, totally made up “research study” recently published in the so-called Journal of Public Health Policy. This is not the first time we’ve heard this particular anti-fossil fuel argument–that shale causes sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). We’ve highlighted this anti lie a number of times over the years (see our stories here). Just like all lies pedaled by antis, they recycle this one again and again–it comes around every year or two. If you tell a lie often enough… This most recent permutation uses, in the exact words of the authors themselves, “a quasi-natural experiment within the Marcellus shale region plus panel data estimation techniques to quantify the impact of fracking activity on local gonorrhea incidences.” In other words, they just made it up. Spit-balled. Guessed. Lied. There is no real science here…
Continue reading

| | |

More Junk Science: “Study” on Low PA Birth Weight from Fracking

Another bought-and-paid-for junk science report has been released and is now grabbing headlines from lazy (or biased) mainstream news organizations. A study by researchers from the University of Chicago and Princeton University, funded by the uber-liberal (and anti-drilling) MacArthur Foundation. The MacArthur Foundation funds some of the worst of the worst Big Green groups, including Earthworks, Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Sierra Club, among others. The “study” looked at health records from Pennsylvania and purports to find that in those locations with fracked shale wells, babies are born with lower birth weights than in areas without fracking. And there’s the headline everyone is grabbing. Here’s how it works: Big donors like the MacArthur Foundation go shopping for scientists at highly respected, reputable universities they can buy off with a research grant. They then tell the researchers what the outcome of the study will be. The researchers then conduct their research and magically come to the predetermined conclusion and get it published in a “peer reviewed” (and obscure) scientific journal. It has just happened again, with a study titled “Hydraulic fracturing and infant health: New evidence from Pennsylvania” (full copy below). How do we know this is actually junk science? Even the left-leaning Science magazine says this about the study: “…there is no smoking gun that proves how fracking impairs infant health.” When the left says that about a study, it’s junk…
Continue reading

| | | |

New Study Shows NO Link Between Marcellus & PA Mortality Rates

An important research report has just been released that shows no connection between Marcellus Shale drilling and death (i.e. mortality) rates in Pennsylvania. Since the dawn of shale fracking, antis have made wild claims about fracking leading to low birth weights, asthma, and early death for those who live near active shale drilling operations. This study (full copy below) refutes that junk science–by using real data and real facts. Energy in Depth (an industry group) sponsored the research, but they hired an independent researcher to do the work. Hey, if we don’t pay for real research, it won’t get done! The independent researcher analyzed Pennsylvania Department of Health data for the state as a whole and the counties of Bradford, Greene, Lycoming, Susquehanna, Tioga, and Washington from 2000 to 2014. The data shows mortality rates in those six PA counties (which happen to be the counties with the most Marcellus Shale development) have declined or remained stable since shale production began in the region. In fact, the top Marcellus counties experienced declines in mortality rates in most of the indices. This is yet more proof that natural gas is not only good for the environment, it’s good for humans too…
Continue reading

| | | | | | |

“Health Experts” Meet in Pitt. to Demonize Shale, Shell Cracker

A group of so-called “health experts” pontificated at an event yesterday hosted by the League of [Liberal Democrat] Women Voters in Pittsburgh. They were supposedly there to discuss shale and public health. One of the gripe sessions took aim against Shell’s now-under construction ethane cracker facility. Speakers tried hard not to come right out and curse shale and the cracker–but they couldn’t help themselves. In the end they made untrue statements that imply the cracker will poison the community and make it unlivable. One speaker’s solution? “Don’t build it.” Typical. All you need to know about yesterday’s meeting is that one of the panelists is the staff attorney for the radical enviro organization Earthjustice. Truth was the main casualty at yesterday’s meeting…
Continue reading

| | | |

Antis Release Fake Report Claiming PA Children at Risk from Drilling

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has done it again. They’ve posted another fake news story about the Marcellus Shale industry. Here’s how it works: A Big Green group, like the odious Earthworks, enlists the help of a servile, biased “reporter”–feeding all sorts of false information to said “reporter”–the “reporter” essentially takes dictation, writes it up, and publishes it as “news.” Earthworks and Moms Clean Air Force, both national, radical, out-of-the-mainstream anti fossil-fuel groups, have colluded with the Post-Gazette to release a fake news “report” that says because some of Pennsylvania’s children go to school within a half mile of an oil or gas well, those children are endangered from emissions, including methane. Yeah, methane–you know, natural gas. IF methane happens to leak (which doesn’t happen often) it simply goes straight up into the atmosphere where it supposedly contributes to man-made global warming. It certainly doesn’t endanger anyone on the ground. The Big Green groups publishing the report say 311,000 kids in PA go to school near an oil or gas well (the vast majority being conventional, non-shale wells). Big Green totally lies about the risks. But let’s set that aside for the moment. Why are only children endangered? Why not adults too? Or pets? Or zombies? Big Green is (ab)using children in their narrative because everyone has a knee-jerk reaction when it comes to kids. We all will protect our children with our own lives–it’s an ingrained, automatic reaction. These sleazeballs are playing off that fear with a false report–and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is complicit in spreading the lie…
Continue reading