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Lancaster PA Hospital Goes Political with Anti-Fracking Article

Perhaps it’s time for those who support using clean-burning natural gas to find a new hospital–if they live in the Lancaster, PA area. In the fall edition of The Journal of Lancaster General Hospital, an anti-fossil fuel doctor who practices at the hospital published an outrageous political smear job pretending to be a scientific article–lying about natural gas and its extraction and its “pollution” of the environment. Dr. Alan S. Peterson, M.D., who specializes in geriatrics (he’s 71 himself), is an anti-driller with a history of activism against the shale industry. In an article in the Fall issue of the Journal, Peterson quotes a number of discredited “studies” funded with money from Big Green groups to make a case against the shale industry. Unfortunately, the article is dressed up scientific garb, giving it the illusion of accuracy. It is nothing more than typical anti hoo-ha. Two weeks ago Dr. Peterson penned an op-ed for a local Lancaster news outlet opposing a plan to fix dramatically slow response times at the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) when issuing permits related to shale drilling. Peterson is political, plain and simple–and he opposes the extraction of fossil fuels, which says all you need to know about Dr. Peterson, and about Lancaster General…
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Yale U Launches Another Sham Fracking Study, Predetermined Outcome

In June 2016 MDN told you about a sham “study” on the way from an anti-drilling “researcher” from Yale University, funded by Big Green groups (see Yale Arrives in Belmont County to Study the Evils of Fracking). “Researcher” Nicole Deziel arrived in Belmont County and announced, in so many words, she would drag a $20 bill through a trailer park (literally willing to pay only $20) to “study” air and water samples from residents’ domiciles as part of a new research “project” with a predetermined outcome–that they’re being poisoned by fracking. Ms. Deziel wanted 100 participants and ended up with 66. After eight weeks of collecting samples and talking to people, Ms. Deziel held a wrap-up rally with area residents before departing town to discuss the “study”–saying she has no conclusions, yet. The reason we knew the Yale “study” is a put-up job, and not real science, is because at the very same wrap-up meeting residents also heard from the radical anti-drilling group Ohio Environmental Council. That was the tip-off that this was not real research but hucksterism with a predetermined outcome (see Put-Up Job: Yale “Researchers” Meet with Locals in Belmont County). Ms. Deziel and a cabal of Yale “researchers” are back to “launch a new study on the health effects of hydraulic fracturing.” This time Deziel and company have hit big money–the “study” is being funded with $2 million grant from the Environmental Protection Agency. Antis doing “research” have fleeced the EPA into backing them for another study with a predetermined outcome. A true waste of taxpayer’s money. But hey, it’s made millionaires out the researchers!…
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Is Truck Traffic the Culprit in Fracking’s So-Called ‘Health Effects’

West Virginia University professor and researcher Dr. Michael McCawley, chairman of the Dept. of Occupational & Environmental Health Sciences in the School of Public Health, has been studying the health effects of fracking since 2012. Dr. McCawley launched the Marcellus Shale Energy and Environment Laboratory (MSEEL)–a project that drilled a test well is providing real-time air, noise, occupational safety and health monitoring over a five-year period (see WVU Launches 5-Year Study of Local Frack Site for Air, Noise, H&S). It is one of three such projects approved and funded (in part) by the U.S. Dept. of Energy. When Dr. McCawley theorizes on something to do with fracking, we sit up and take notice. He does not appear, to us, to have any ax to grind with drilling. He’s a researcher looking for answers to questions. We spotted a report by The Allegheny Front, a PBS program with an anti-drilling bent, but sometimes with good reports, interviewing Dr. McCawley about his newest theory as to whether or not, and how, fracking may have local health impacts. McCawley’s theory, after standing in the middle of Montrose, PA watching truck after truck after truck pass through town, is that the presence of so many trucks, most of them burning diesel fuel, may indeed impact people who live close to drilling sites. Diesel emissions in concentrated form are not good. Here’s what McCawley had to say, via Allegheny Front
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Fake Science: SWPA Enviro Health Registry for Those Near Fracking

More fake “research” is on the way courtesy of the anti-drilling Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project. The Project is launching a so-called public health registry. Log in to the website and if you live within five miles of a drilling site, you can report your latest headache in an attempt to link it to (and smear) shale development. Yep, just blame everything on drilling. Got allergies? Blame drilling. Headache? Blame drilling. Earache? Blame drilling. Er, a “performance issues?” Blame drilling. (Maybe they’ll give you some free Viagra.) That’s the purpose of this latest sham initiative by the same group that has brought us such glittering examples of “research” as “The List of the Harmed”…
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New Analysis Shows Johns Hopkins Asthma “Study” was Junk Science

Last July anti-frackers at the Johns Hopkins-Bloomberg School of Public Health expelled another bought-and-paid-for (by anti-drillers) “study” that implies the presence of fracking in Pennsylvania leads to causing, or making worse, asthma attacks (see Sham “Study” from Johns Hopkins Says Fracking Makes Athsma Worse). The study, “Association Between Unconventional Natural Gas Development in the Marcellus Shale and Asthma Exacerbations,” evaluated thousands of health records from the Geisinger Clinic in PA, looking for patterns between people showing up with asthmatic symptoms and correlating it to how close they live to shale wells being drilled. As we pointed out at the time, “The incredible thing about this latest run at smearing the miracle of fracking is this: the authors (most of them students) admit in their own study they only have theories, no proof that ties fracking to asthma.” At the time, Energy in Depth noted it seemed a bit odd that the researchers didn’t include a county by county comparison, to illustrate how asthma got worse in counties with drilling as opposed to those without. Now we know why. EID has done its own analysis, using PA Dept. of Health data, that shows asthma episodes in counties with the most shale drilling went DOWN, not up! Which blows the door right off the Johns Hopkins “study”…
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Fake “Report” Claims 9K Health Complaints in PA from Fracking

A fake report recently issued by the anti-drilling, radically left and biased Public Herald (populated with activists masquerading as “journalists”) claims that some 9,400 residents in Pennsylvania have filed complaints that fracking has caused them ill-health in one way or the other. It is, according to anti-drillers, a public health “crisis.” How do we know this so-called report is TOTAL BS? Look at who wrote it, and look at who funded it: community organizers wrote it, the Heinz Foundation funded it. This is another sterling example of Joseph Goebbels-like propaganda. The Harrisburg Patriot-News allowed one such community organizer/anti-fossil fueler to run an article on the opinion-editorial page touting the report as legitimate. You can fool some of the people some of the time…
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Group of Radical PA Doctors Pass Resolution Calling for Frack Ban

enviro naziThe 16,000-member Pennsylvania Medical Society is controlled by a small and dedicated group of radical leftists. They’re also shockingly stupid, for doctors and medical people (you might want to seek medical care in another state). The PA Medical Society’s 300-member House of Delegates voted unanimously to pass a resolution calling for a total ban on fracking in the Keystone State. Stop it–all of it–right now. That’s what they said. Even though there is no evidence that fracking harms human health. That is, independent studies done all say the same thing: fracking is safe. However, biased bought-and-paid-for studies say fracking will kill ‘ya. We find it astonishing that there was not one single delegate who didn’t vote for the resolution–which proves our point that radical, lock-step lefties control the society…
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New Research Finds Natural Gas Can (Literally) Save Your Life

save-your-lifeUsing natural gas may literally save your life. Researchers from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) recently conducted research using the country of Turkey because that country has made a big shift over the past couple of decades, moving away from other forms of energy and to natural gas. The researchers looked at mortality rates for adults and the elderly and found that mortality rates for both groups dropped, dramatically, over that period. Why? How? Good questions. Because the air is now cleaner thanks to an increase in natgas use, there has been a decrease in pollution linked and a correlating decrease in lung and heart disease deaths among adults and the elderly. It’s in the report. Of course people living longer because of natural gas isn’t good news for anti-fossil fuel nutters…
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Another Devastating Critique of Fracking/Premature Birth “Study”

In early October MDN brought you the story that a new so-called research study had been published claiming to show a connection between how close mommies live to a fracking site and an increase in premature births (see New Junk Science Claims PA Fracking Leads to Premature Births). We quickly debunked that study by showing the huge flaws in how it was “researched” (see EID’s Devastating Critique of PA Premature Birth “Study”). We have a further update. Dr. Gilbert Ross, senior director of medicine and public health at the American Council on Science and Health has weighed in with his own critique of the science behind the study. Dr. Ross says, “Realistically, there is no way hydraulic fracturing could have had an impact on pregnancy outcomes.” Here’s what else he says about this very flawed study…
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EID’s Devastating Critique of PA Premature Birth “Study”

exposeLast week MDN reported on a new junk science study that claims to have discovered the closer you live to fracking in Pennsylvania, the more likely your baby will be born prematurely (see New Junk Science Claims PA Fracking Leads to Premature Births). We pointed out the study was funded by left-leaning organizations. However, MDN friend Nicole Jacobs, from the always excellent Energy in Depth blog site, has done a top notch investigation of the study and its authors. Nicole found so many conflicts of interest and biases on the part of the study’s authors, it’s a wonder the study was approved for publication at all. Of course mainstream media will totally ignore the evidence that this is yet another political (not scientific) study–but that’s mainstream media for you. They don’t report news–they issue propaganda. Perhaps the most devastating fact unearthed by Nicole is that the rate of premature births in the study area, the rate that’s supposedly higher the closer you get to fracking–is actually below the overall national average of premature births. In other words, the study’s authors manipulated the data until they could get the results they wanted…
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New Junk Science Claims PA Fracking Leads to Premature Births

junk scienceIn January 2014, anti-drilling “researchers” jumped the gun at the annual meeting of the American Economic Association in Philadelphia by announcing “preliminary” results of research in which they claim they can show a connection between shale drilling and low birth weights in newborn babies in Pennsylvania (see Another Flawed Fracking/Health Study Emerges…from Economics Conf). The “researchers” quickly walked back the announcement they made at the conference because, well, because they hadn’t actually done the research yet (see Researchers Backpedal on Bloomberg Story about Fracking & Babies). Another group of “researchers” claims to have done the research (same set of data) and published a new study along the same lines last week in the journal Epidemiology. The conclusion? The closer you live to shale drilling activity in PA, the more likely your baby will born prematurely. The study, called “Unconventional Natural Gas Development and Birth Outcomes in Pennsylvania, USA,” was partially funded by the ultra-liberal Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and subjected to a sham peer review process to give it the veneer of respectability…
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Devastating Critique of “Study” Linking Fracking to Health Issues

Yesterday MDN told you about a new “study” that reportedly links the presence of fracking with an increase in hospital visits for serious health issues, like heart conditions (see New Study Claims Marcellus Drilling Causes Serious Health Issues). We did a fast read of the research and explained our concerns about it, including the statement by the authors of the study themselves who admit the study doesn’t actually prove a thing. MDN friend Nicole Jacobs at Energy in Depth has done a deep dive and provides the following devastating critique of that study, including unearthing a video by one of the study’s authors which shows her as a full-throated anti-driller. That is, this “study” was a sham from the beginning, which was kind of our gut instinct when we spotted it…
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New Study Claims Marcellus Drilling Causes Serious Health Issues

junk scienceA new research study appearing in an online “journal” with very low standards, PLOS ONE, claims that hydraulic fracturing leads to an increase in hospitalization rates in the Marcellus Shale region. The research study, titled “Unconventional Gas and Oil Drilling Is Associated with Increased Hospital Utilization Rates” (full copy embedded below) on the surface appears to contain damning evidence. Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University looked at hospitalization records for three northeastern Pennsylvania counties from 2007-2011–Bradford, Susquehanna and Wayne. Both Bradford and Susquehanna counties have seen a huge amount of shale drilling over that period. Wayne County, on the other hand, has seen no shale drilling because of the intransigence of the Delaware River Basin Commission and their ongoing frack ban. The researchers say that people in Bradford and Susquehanna counties go to the hospital for serious heart conditions at a rate 27% higher than those in Wayne County. Ergo, there is a connection between fracking and health issues. We are fully in favor of rigorous academic research into issues like this one. But a few things bother us about this latest “fracking kills” study…
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Pitt. Post-Gazette Affirms AMA Lie re Frack Chemical Disclosure

Shale drillers already full disclose the relative thimbleful of chemicals used in fracking solutions. They do so by listing them on the FracFocus.org website–well by well for each well they drill. Recently the American Medical Association, either through ignorance or (more likely) an intentional desire to mislead the American public voted to adopt a resolution calling for the full disclosure of chemicals used in fracking (see American Medical Assoc Votes for Full Disclosure of Frack Chemicals). Makes no difference that this already happens. The point is to further the myth that it doesn’t happen. Just to ensure low information headline readers are 100% brainwashed on this issue, the editorial writers at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette come along to affirm the AMA’s lie…
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American Medical Assoc Votes for Full Disclosure of Frack Chemicals

The American Medical Association (AMA) is inhabited–some would say infested–with politically correct left-leaning liberals. At least that’s true of the leaders of the association. So it’s no surprise that in the name of “health” and “science” the AMA passed a policy at their annual meeting requesting something that already exists–full disclosure of the chemicals used in fracking. It makes no difference that full disclosure is already being done–the AMA is making a political statement–not a health or science statement…
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MSC Devastating Critique of “Low Birth Weight Near Fracking” Study

Yesterday MDN told you about a new anti-drilling-backed so-called “study” by students at the University of Pittsburgh making wild claims about babies born near Marcellus Shale fracking sites having lower birth weights than those not born near frack sites (see Study Tries to Link Marcellus Fracking to Low Birth Weight Babies). We outlined the link between bought-and-paid for “science” that gets amplified by mainstream media. The Marcellus Shale Coalition also published their own criticism, saying, “A new non-peer reviewed paper – funded by the Heinz Endowments and posted on a pay-for-play website – fails by virtually every measure to demonstrate basic and sound research principles. Below are several of the many factors that skew the advocacy paper’s so-called findings.” The MSC goes on to critique the “research” and completely shredding and exposing it for the fraud it is…
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