Health Impacts

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    Research for Hire: Anti Groups Sponsor Latest Yale Frack “Study”

    researchThe next round in so-called anti-drilling research into the “health impacts” from fracking have arrived in the form of a study about to be published in the National Institutes of Health journal Environmental Health Perspectives. Titled “Proximity to Natural Gas Wells and Reported Health Status: Results of a Household Survey in Washington County, Pennsylvania” (full copy embedded below), this latest salvo in the fracking wars is DOA. Why? The anti-drilling Heinz Endowments, led by Mamma Teresa Heinz-Kerry, the Schmidt Family Foundation, founded by former Google CEO (and big-time anti-driller) Eric Schmidt, and the Philadelphia-area Claneil Foundation, funder of many anti-drilling “studies” are the main sponsors of this latest “study” that tabulates self-reported ailments of skin rashes and coughing from 492 people (in 180 families) living in Washington County, PA. Guess what they found? If you read the USA Today headline, they found “People near ‘fracking’ wells report health woes,” to which we say, those who don’t live near fracking wells report health woes too! The study itself says this: “…these results should be viewed as hypothesis generating…proximity of natural gas wells may be (emphasis added) associated with the prevalence of health symptoms including dermal and respiratory 3 conditions in residents living near natural gas extraction activities. Further study of these associations, including the role of specific air and water exposures, is warranted.” That is, nothing conclusive was found from this small sample of 180 households in a single county. But let’s not let “nothing conclusive” get in the way of spinning yet another tall tale that fracking causes health problems. Crank up the media lie machine…
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    Is There a Link Between Fracking & STDs in Ohio?

    Does fracking cause sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)? It may sound like the beginning of a laugh line, but dedicated anti-drillers are deadly serious about trying to link an influx of “foreigners” (as OH Gov. John Kasich calls them) from other states into Ohio counties with shale drilling and a rise in STD rates in those counties. The theory goes that as these traveling workers arrive–something akin to carnival workers in anti-drilling lore–they bring with them STDs and they sleep around–a lot (according to the mythology). And they spread their nasty diseases everywhere they go. Reporters feed these myths with careless references to places like Carroll County, OH having a “spike” in STDs. Just one problem–when you dig into the evidence, it doesn’t back up the claim…
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    MD Report on ‘Potential’ Health Impacts from Marcellus Drilling

    Back in April MDN told you that Maryland anti-drillers were lobbing an opening preventative strike against a forthcoming study on potential health impacts from Marcellus drilling, should it ever happen in Maryland (see Maryland Anti-Drillers Say Fracking Health Report Will Fall Short). Anti-drillers pre-judged the study even before it was released. The study, titled “Potential Public Health Impacts of Natural Gas Development and Production in the Marcellus Shale in Western Maryland,” was released on August 18, all 203 pages of it (full copy embedded below). We predict anti-drillers may find a lot to like in this study and perhaps were a tad hasty in their knee-jerk reaction. What was the study supposed to cover, and what did it find?…
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    PA DOH “Improves” Enviro Health Complaints Process

    A completely manufactured smear campaign by anti-drilling PBS reporters at Pennsylvania StateImpact continues to be joined by other willing, colluding accomplices in mainstream media outlets who accuse the PA Department of Health of either ignoring or intentionally hushing up so-called complaints. MDN previously outlined the chronology of the propaganda campaign by StateImpact Pennsylvania and the pushback by Secretary of Health Michael Wolf (see PA’s Sec of Health Fires Back at Reckless Accusations Against Dept). Because anti-drillers believe they have a winning issue (completely divorced from reality, but that doesn’t stop them), they continue to hammer away. And so, finally, Wolf (and Gov. Tom Corbett’s administration) are now playing defense instead of calling out these sleazeballs and exposing them for the frauds they are. The Dept. of Health has recently introduced “improvements to the environmental health complaint processes”…
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    MDN Editor Jim Willis Appears on Scranton Talk Radio

    From MDN editor Jim Willis: I don’t do it often, but every now and again I’m contacted to appear on a radio talk show to discuss Marcellus Shale drilling and related issues. Last week I was contacted by David Madeira who hosts a daily morning talk show in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area on 94.3 FM “The Talker”. Dave is a great guy and a great host. He truly makes it easy! Dave wanted the low down on the story that was started way back in June by a liberal PBS reporter who is quoting two former PA State Health Department employees who claim they were muzzled from talking to residents claiming to have suffered health impacts from nearby shale drilling. I wrote up the story of how the media has conducted a smear campaign against the health department (see PA’s Sec of Health Fires Back at Reckless Accusations Against Dept). On the call, I walk David through how a story like this is manufactured and recycled through “mainstream” liberal media. Give it a listen!
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    The Supreme Arrogance of SWPA Environmental Health Project

    You may recall an anti-drilling group that calls itself the Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project (SWPA-EHP) is trying to prove Marcellus drilling makes people sick (see Health “Study” of Whopping 27 People Blames Drilling for Symptoms and more recently, Anti-Drilling Group Distributes Air Monitors, Calls it Research). In an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, a media spokesman for SWPA-EHP makes the breathtakingly arrogant statement that his organization is the public health organization representing people affected by shale drilling in the U.S….
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    PA’s Sec of Health Fires Back at Reckless Accusations Against Dept

    The latest anti-drilling push in Pennsylvania is to plant seeds of fear and doubt that Marcellus “may be” harming some people’s health. That tactic has worked wonders in liberal New York, so the anti-fossil fuel crowd in PA have also glommed onto. First to appear are stories planted by anti-drilling PBS “reporters” accusing the state’s Dept. of Health of muzzling its own employees (see StateImpact Pennsylvania’s story Former state health employees say they were silenced on drilling). That story about a so-called buzzword list that supposedly would trigger a “don’t talk about it” rule (which is utter nonsense) was picked up and endlessly repeated in the liberal mediasphere–over and over and over and over again. That’s how yellow journalism works. Michael Wolf, secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, has had enough and is now pushing back…
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    NY Antis Release So-Called Compendium of Fracking Health Risks

    Apparently anti-drillers in New York State are tired of waiting for the State Dept. of Health (DOH) to release its findings on public healthy implications from proposed new fracking rules from the Dept. of Conservation (now six years overdue). So a group of anti-drillers calling themselves Concerned Health Professionals of New York (mostly it’s New York’s own anti-drilling diva Sandra Steingraber) put a couple of summer interns to good use and compiled a so-called “report” of alllllll the damage done by shale drilling–a compendium of its evil, nasty, vile effects. (Just don’t tell anyone in PA, WV, OH, TX, OK, CO, CA, ND or any other state where shale drilling is heavily done–those residents don’t realize they’ve been damaged)…
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    WVU: 10 Ways to Reduce Enviro/Health Impacts from Shale Drilling

    Researchers from West Virginia University have just published a new paper aimed at reducing environmental and health risks from Marcellus Shale drilling. The paper, titled “Practical measures for reducing the risk of environmental contamination in shale energy production,” is published in the Journal Environmental Sciences: Processes & Impacts and contains 10 specific recommendations that drillers can adopt to make shale drilling safer and less impactful…
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    Yet Another Fundraiser, er, Health Impacts from Fracking Study

    The Boston-based non-profit Health Effects Institute has announced they will a) draw together all of the “knowledge” we currently have about health impacts from shale drilling, by late 2014, and b) figure out a plan to research what we don’t know and have the proposed framework for more study sometime in 2015. That is, they’re about to launch a study of how they should study. Er, sort of circular, but that’s what they said…
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    NY DOH Docs Show Geisinger Fishing for $, Ralph Nader Lurking

    The anti-drilling Seneca Lake Pure Waters Association and the Gannett Albany Bureau filed identical Freedom of Information Law (or FOIL) requests in Jaunary of this year to get information about the so-called review of health effects from fracking, a review being conducted by the NY Dept. of Health (DOH) and it’s resigning Commissioner, Nirav Shah. Some five CDs and one DVD full of information later and we have a few interesting tidbits. One tidbit is that Geisinger Health System, which famously launched a multi-year study of the “health effects” of fracking in PA without any money to fund the study (see PA Marcellus Health Study Still No Pulse – Needs Extra $24M), tried to enlist Shah and the NY DOH, no doubt believing NY is flush with Wall Street cash. NY politely declined.

    We also learn the wacky Ralph Nader requested a meeting with NY Dept. of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Joe Martens. Ralph wants all fracking everywhere–from here to Pluto–to stop. Martens politely declined the meeting (time waster for Joey). Here’s an overview, based on the documentation, of what the DOH has–and has not–done in their ongoing, never ending review of the “science”…
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    State Health Com. Nirav Shah has Enough of Andy Cuomo, Leaving NY

    keep calm and blame the whipping boyApparently Dr. Nirav Shah, State Health Commissioner in New York, is tired of being Andrew Cuomo’s tool–Andy’s whipping boy. For more than a year Cuomo has been able to hide behind an unfinished so-called public health review of proposed new fracking rules, proposed by the state’s Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC). In what can only be called a conspiracy, DEC Commissioner Joe Martens asked Shah for a review of the SGEIS with an eye to how shale drilling may (or may not) affect this nebulous concept called “the public health.” It’s now obvious that both Martens and Cuomo had set up Shah as the fall guy, requesting (we suspect) that Shah intentionally delay his findings. Shah has been carrying their water for more than a year now. Recently Norse Energy and the Joint Landowners Coalition of New York sued Cuomo, Martens and Shah to force them to finish the health review and release the new drilling regs (see D-Day: JLCNY Files Lawsuit Today Against Cuomo, Martens, Shah).

    Yesterday Shah announced he is stepping down from his position in June. He’s had enough of this incestuous mess called New York State politics, and enough of the man-child Andy Cuomo–a pathetic politician who can’t make a decision about fracking. The reason we suspect Cuomo asked Shah to delay the results of his “health review” is because a) Shah originally said the review would be done within several weeks, which has turned into more than a year, and b) Shah is leaving to become Chief Operating Officer of the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan in southern California–at double or triple his current salary. It’s a huge promotion. You think Kaiser would hire a new COO who is inept and can’t complete a simple and straightforward health review? No way–which tells you Shah was delaying at the request of Cuomo and Martens. And he’s now had enough…
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    Silica Dust Exposure Topic A at ShaleSafe Conference in Wheeling

    The West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association hosted their inaugural ShaleSafe Conference and Expo at Oglebay Park in Wheeling earlier this week (Monday through Wednesday). What makes the conference interesting and unusual is that the entire event was focused on the topic of safety in shale plays–particularly the Marcellus and Utica. If you hang around with oil and gas people for any length of time, the topic of safety comes up. Contrary to the picture anti-drillers try to paint, the oil and gas industry is laser focused on worker and public safety. And that focus showed at the conference.

    The highlight of the conference–the main focus–was a panel on silica (sand) exposure, which was held yesterday (Wednesday). That panel featured Michael Breitenstein from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and Dr. Michael McCawley, chairman of the Department of Occupational & Environmental Health Sciences in the School of Public Health at West Virginia University. McCawley, you may remember, has been beating the drum for some time that setbacks for drilling in WV are not enough and that air pollution coming from drilling operations is a serious issue (see WVU Prof Keeps Up Pressure on Improved Air Quality at Drill Sites). Silica dust is a serious issue, and both speakers were there to put the fear of God into the audience about it…
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    Maryland Anti-Drillers Say Fracking Health Report Will Fall Short

    If you’re an objective scientist, you formulate a hypothesis (a “best guess”) and test it. And test it again. And again. The results of science are testable, repeatable and demonstrable. If the results don’t match your original hypothesis, you throw that hypothesis out and get a new one to see if the data fits. That’s how real science works. If you’re a political huckster, you engage in scientific insanity–testing and re-testing and when the outcome doesn’t match your twisted and preconceived notions of what it should be–you tell those doing the testing they’re doing it wrong and to do it again. In other words, you’ve already determined what you want the outcome to be–and anything short of that is not acceptable. It’s not real science but smearing scientific lipstick on an ideological pig. That’s how anti-drillers in Maryland are treating a so-called health study on potential Marcellus Shale drilling in the state.

    A group of ideological, anti-drilling hucksters, including the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments (ANHE), Maryland Environment Health Network (MdEHN), Concerned Health Professionals of New York (CHPNY), the odious Food and Water Watch and Ann Bristow (a member of Gov. O’Malley’s fracking commission), have declared a study that’s not yet completed or released will fall short of their desired, predetermined outcome. That is, they’ve already prejudged the not-yet-finished report and found it lacking. Their erudite (and insane) solution? Delay it even more. Extend it. Test again. And again. And again. And keep testing and researching (and lying) until the report says what they want it to say–that which isn’t true: fracking has negative health impacts on “the public”…
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    Hocus Pocus Drilling Impacts Health Survey in Wheeling, WV

    We spotted a mention that the Wheeling-Ohio County (WV) Health Department has launched a so-called health survey to measure the impacts of Marcellus Shale drilling on area residents. So we took a peek–and we were unimpressed. Survey respondents are asked to self-report (no verification) how they “feel” about their current aches and pains–essentially the common ailments everyone faces no matter where they live. Then they’re asked precisely two questions (that we can determine) that *may* be related to gas drilling: “Have you noticed any changes in road conditions in your region since 2010?” and “Do you work in the gas industry?”

    We’re guessing this is the kind of survey where they try to assign blame for headaches, etc. on gas drilling based on your address or occupation. If the people living (or working) within 5 miles of drill site have a statistical 2% increase in headaches, voilà–it was gas drilling that caused it. Which of course is not science at. It’s statistical hocus pocus that proves nothing. It’s all self-reported for goodness sake! How long will this “survey” be live? Oh, a few years, until they can “prove” drilling is causing problems…
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    Guest Post: Pennsylvania Drilling Moratorium – Good or Bad?

    Chris AckerBefore Pennsylvanians head to the polls in November to elect a new governor and new legislators, they may want to consider the consequences of installing Democrats to re-assume power in the state. Specifically, Democrats have vowed to slap an ongoing moratorium–essentially a ban–on Marcellus Shale drilling should they regain control. MDN has been one of the few places in the media to even cover this story, and we’ve called it just what it is: economic insanity (see PA Democrat Party Votes to End Marcellus Shale Drilling Statewide).

    MDN friend and contributor Chris Acker, a Pennsylvania property owner and geological engineer with an MBA, does a deep dive into the issue to explore what would happen should PA slap a moratorium on new shale drilling. Hint: It’s like experiencing someone’s worst nightmare…
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