Birth defects near oil and gas wells

A study of 125,000 births in Colorado: “What we found was mothers with the most [oil or gas] wells around their homes, and closest to their homes, had a 30 percent higher chance of having congenital heart defects than mothers with no wells around their homes”.

good news: American Petroleum Institute will be funding health studies:

http://www.alleghenyfront.org/story/more-study-needed-fracking-and-...

primary source:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3984231/

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Permalink Reply by Paul Heckbert on June 22, 2015 at 4:47pm

article “What's Killing the Babies of Vernal, Utah?”

excerpt:

”This isn't the only baby to die this year." She led [midwife] Young to a pair of fresh-dug graves; two newborns had been laid to rest there since the first of the year. Young went home and combed through online obits: four other babies from Vernal or close by had died already that year. It was a shockingly big number for a small town. …

Five more babies would die that year, bringing the body count to at least 10 in Vernal; three more were lost in towns nearby. Young searched back to the start of the decade. In 2010, there were two, about average for a small town, then one in 2011 and four in 2012, including one whose mom worked at the senior facility on that smog-bound corner. And then the big jump in 2013, on the heels of a historic run in production that began a decade earlier. The Uintah Basin alone was home to more than 11,000 wells – that's an enormous concentration of soot and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) drifting into Vernal, then sitting there; in that inversion-filled winter, the VOC count was equivalent to 100 million cars' exhaust.

…

A couple of weeks later, [midwife] Young called me with horrible news: "Four of my five ladies lost their babies. Four miscarriages in just two weeks! How'm I s'posed to do this anymore?"

I asked her what she thought might have caused this spate of losses. "They all live in town and said their water tasted bad, so I went to their houses and took samples." She tested the water with a monitoring device used by drillers; most of the batches tested were positive for extreme toxicity from hydrogen sulfide, H2S, one of the most deadly of the gases released by drilling. Exposure to it has killed a number of rig workers over the past few decades. In high enough concentration, just one breath is enough. In much smaller amounts, H2S can cause miscarriages — and the amounts Young says she found were more than 7,000 times the EPA threshold for safety.

http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/fracking-whats-killing...

Permalink Reply by Gregory Wrightstone on June 22, 2015 at 11:06pm

Thank you, Paul. You have answered a question that I have been wondering about for some time: "What kind of person actually believes this pseudo-science trash?"

Permalink Reply by Paul Heckbert on July 6, 2015 at 3:17pm

New Pennsylvania health study results:

“the study used data from state agencies to examine eight heavily fracked counties in Pennsylvania — four in the northeast and four in the southwest region of the state, counties that account for the majority of the state's natural gas drill wells and gas production. …

Analyzing publicly available data from the Pennsylvania Department of Health and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Mangano found that, since the early 2000s and compared to the rest of the state, the heavily-fracked counties have seen a rise in infant mortality (13.9 percent), perinatal mortality (23.6 percent), low-weight births (3.4 percent), premature births/gestation less than 32 weeks (12.4 percent) and cancer incidence in age 0-4 (35.1 percent).”

http://www.alternet.org/environment/fracking-linked-increased-infan...

Permalink Reply by Barry D on July 7, 2015 at 5:12am

All this guy d

Permalink Reply by Paul Heckbert on September 23, 2015 at 6:41am

Related new results:

"The team determined that areas which had experienced spills were at a higher risk for contaminating water sources and exposing populations to endocrine-disrupting chemicals than those areas that did not have wells or employ these chemicals.

“Fracking is exempt from federal regulations to protect water quality, but spills associated with natural gas drilling can contaminate surface, ground and drinking water,” said Nagel. “This could raise the risk of reproductive, metabolic, neurological and other diseases, especially in children who are exposed to EDCs [endocrine-disrupting chemicals].” "

http://www.triplepundit.com/2015/09/fracking-chemicals-can-cause-en...

Permalink Reply by Eric on September 23, 2015 at 7:55am

that was written by a 5th grader... nice find

Permalink Reply by George on September 24, 2015 at 1:11am
Paul,
Communism is over.
Permalink Reply by Billy Park Whyde on September 24, 2015 at 11:29pm

Paul: Studies indicate that liberals that live near planned parenthood  have a 100% chance of having aborted babies over conservative groups. Now ban liberals please.

Permalink Reply by paleface on September 25, 2015 at 1:00am

Paul are you living proof of this study?

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