The residents of Southwestern Pennsylvania, especially those in Washington County, have been asking for public presentation of the epidemiological study of harms of fracking performed in the School of Public Health of the University of Pittsburgh for years. The residents asked why do we have illnesses that doctors cannot diagnose or treat? Why do so many of the school children get rare cancers? On the evening of August 15, 2023 they attended the presentation. Staying until the last question from the audience has been heard is very worthwhile. I like to attend meetings virtually, to eliminate travel time, money spent on gasoline and exposure to infectious diseases. So it was easy for me to watch the entire presentation by the epidemiologists and the entire audience response.
A grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Health was necessary to support detailed examination of health records and fracking data from the years 2010 to 2020 in eight counties; Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Greene, Washington and Westmoreland. Dr. James Fabisiak, Director of the Center for Healthy Environments & Communities, in the Environmental and Occupational Health Dept. in the School of Public Health University of Pittsburgh, presented the results. He was careful to explain that the goal of these studies is to present a scientifically valid, unbiased view of the available data. Three areas of health were examined in detail: asthma exacerbations, cancer incidence, and birthweight.
Dr. Fabisiak reported that in people already diagnosed with asthma, serious exacerbations requiring medical intervention were more likely in those living within ten miles of wells producing fracked gas than in those further away. He also stated that children who lived within one mile (1.6 kilometers) of a fracking well have five to seven times the chance of developing lymphoma compared with those who lived five miles (eight kilometers) or farther from a well. Per million children, 60 to 84 cases of lymphoma occur in those living near wells and only twelve cases in those living far away. The data also document a decrease in birth weight of less than one ounce on average in babies of families living closer to frack gas wells while gas is being produced. These findings are consistent with many previously published studies. Dr. Fabisiak’s presentation was not emotional.
The questions and striking statements from the audience put these results into a very painful human experience. Janice, who lost her son to sarcoma, tearfully asked why radiation exposure was not included as a variable. Dr. Fabisiak responded that no exposure to radiation was available in databases. But an attorney, Lisa Johnson, noted that DEP requires companies to report the radiation content in fluid produced at the wellhead. She has documentation of 12,000 picocuries of radium in the produced fluid from a fracking well. She requested that the state provide free toxicology testing for children likely to be exposed to carcinogens. David Templeton, the retired journalist who first wrote about cancer in Canonsburg, expressed concern that cancer cases were missed. He asked for a cluster study there, because exposure from venting and multiple compressor stations occurred very close to the school. Justin Noble, the journalist who previously wrote about health risks in SWPA, asked the epidemiologists how much time they spent in the affected communities watching and feeling the impact of the gas industry on people. He commented that wastewater from wells was discharged into rivers. He asked, “Was water included in the analysis?” Dr. Fabisiak replied that he had no retrospective database of water contaminants.
Raina Ripple, community health advocate and former director of the non-profit Environmental Health Project, remarked, “It is never a good thing to have your children be canaries in the coal mine.” She asked, “What does all this mean for the oil field workers, who are getting these exposures more directly all day, everyday?” She sees no sign that fracking is stopping or even slowing down. The Department of Health (DOH) needs to anticipate what is coming. There are many more cases of cancer waiting to be detected, especially in people who continue to be exposed to this pollution. This study of cancer is the tip of the iceberg.”
Dr. Ned Ketyer, president of Physicians for Social Responsibility Pennsylvania, had called on state regulators in 2019 to study the cases of rare cancers occurring in SWPA, following the investigative report in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “The Human Toll” of 67 patients with rare cancers in four counties around Pittsburgh. He said that the findings of this study on asthma are “a revelation, a bombshell”. No one in Washington County, where he also lives, is more than ten miles away from a frack well or other gas infrastructure that discharges pollutants. Everyone is at risk, and the risk is significant, he concluded. He said these studies are only the beginning. Much more needs to be examined.
The Pennsylvania DOH and the University of Pittsburgh investigators were expected to share their results with concerned residents late in 2022. Washington County GOP State Senator Camera Bartolotta, who as co-chair of the Pennsylvania Senate Oil & Gas Caucus advanced anti-regulatory fossil fuel policies and received thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from industry, urged the DOH not to engage with “anti-fossil fuel advocates.” The presentation to residents was canceled at the last minute. In December 2022, “LittleSis reporter Aly Shaw uncovered key relationships between several trustees at the University of Pittsburgh and oil and gas companies like ExxonMobil, Range Resources, Peoples Gas and Shell Oil.”
Questions from the audience pointed to inadequate documentation of exposure because proximity to compressor stations and pigging sites, where pressure in the gas line is monitored and contents of the pipeline are released in that process,
was not included, as well as many other questions about data definitions and the limitations of gathering data. “Future studies will be needed that assess water quality and cover some of the blind spots of this study,” said Tom Pike, environmental policy advocate at Protect Penn-Trafford, an environmental advocacy group in SWPA, who was speaking on his own behalf, not that of his group. More studies will not sooth the mother who wants to know what to tell her adolescent children when she gets home tonight. They say they drink ‘cancer water’.
Pike also asked the epidemiologists if they supported the Fossil Free Pittsburgh demand that the University of Pittsburgh divest from fossil fuels? Then he asked, if they supported Governor Shapiro’s closed door meetings to ‘kill’ RGGI? The investigators could not address these issues. Dr. Fabisiak replied that their charge was to examine the data in a scientifically responsible way. It is not their place to discuss policy. The speaker from the Pennsylvania DOH claimed no insight into Governor Shapiro’s decisions regarding RGGI.
Kristen Rodack, executive deputy secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, described the department’s plans to educate physicians to recognize people suffering from environmental toxicities, to take appropriate steps for treatment and provide patient support. DOH will also provide education for faculty and students attending public schools in PA. DOH has provided a better online site for reporting findings of pollution. She then admitted, “We know these next steps we’re taking do not relieve the pain, suffering and worry that many of you are experiencing. But we are committing to doing a better job to protect you from environmental health risks.” “We need more than physician education, we need actual protection of the people.” said Laura Dagley, the environmental health & medical writer for Physicians for Social Responsibility Pennsylvania.
No one in the room at that time said the obvious truth, thate won’t be safe as long as gas is produced in Pennsylvania and its neighboring states. This is the elephant in the room. Not only is this toxic industry killing children, and older people, in Pennsylvania, but it is accelerating life threatening climate change across the entire world. Nevertheless, many people in the United States persist in looking only at their financial gain in the next quarter. This short-sighted greed is very dangerous for all of us.
Sandra Steingraber, co-founder of Concerned Health Professionals of New York, has studied environmental pollution for years and helped lead New York State to ban fracking in 2014. She listened to this presentation. She sees the contrast between the action of New York State, to ban fracking, and the inaction of Pennsylvania. She said, “There’s nothing that makes fracking safer in Pennsylvania than it is in New York, and they have the same data available to them, . . .” The government of Pennsylvania, at so many levels, continues to turn a blind eye to the devastation that fracking brings us. (See footnote #4).
At this time it is remarkable that the media paid so much attention to the quiet presentation of this serious research data. The following links are to publications in the two days following this presentation.
https://whyy.org/articles/fracking-study-health/
https://www.publicsource.org/fracking-proximity-cancer-asthma-southwestern-pa-pitt-wolf/
https://www.commondreams.org/news/fracking-cancer
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16082023/pennsylvania-fracking-link-childhood-lymphoma/
https://www.foxnews.com/us/links-between-fracking-cancer-children-found-recent-pennsylvania-study
Thanks to Tammy Murphy, Advocacy Director for Physicians for Social Responsibility Pennsylvania,
who compiled these links and said, “continuing to permit this industry to operate as we have is an acceptance of the morbidity and mortality that comes with it and that is a choice of state sanctioned violence.”
The article in Capital and Main presents a range of actions that could increase protection of the health of people confronted by frack wells, etc. The problems caused by irresponsible management of abandoned wells, irresponsible management of waste water from fracked wells and broken pipelines, ignored compressor stations and pigging sites, are present throughout the state of Pennsylvania. Some counties appear more affected than others, but remember that air and water pollution compromise the health of people hundreds of miles away from the source of pollution.
We can not expect a healthier future until the oil and gas remain in the ground. The affected communities recognize dangerous exposures and want this threat to their health to end. The final voice from the audience pushed investigators and the Secretary of Health to commit to taking a ‘Fracking Tour’ organized by the Center for Coalfield Justice. Some of them, including Kristen Rodack, agreed to demonstrate their commitment to change in this manner. Documentation of numbers is very useful, but face to face recognition of the suffering of human beings appears necessary to motivate change.
B.W. Brandom, MD (retired)
Concerned Health Professionals of Pennsylvania, Steering Committee Member
August 25, 2023