Low Birth-weight Babies Associated with Marcellus Shale Fracking

[Panich52]

FrackCheckWV

Low Birth-weight Babies Associated with Marcellus Shale Fracking

Study finds lower birth weight babies near Penna. gas sites

From an Article by Ken Ward, Jr., Charleston Gazette, June 3, 2015

Women living close to a high-density of natural gas operations were more likely to have babies with lower birth weights than women living farther from such operations, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Pittsburgh.

The study from Pitt’s Graduate School of Public Health does not argue that proximity to gas wells caused the lower birth rates, but reports an “association” that emphasizes the need for more and larger such examinations to “evaluate the potential public health significance” of the boom in natural gas in the Marcellus Shale region.

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While the Pitt study focused on wells in three southwestern Pennsylvania counties, it comes as West Virginia citizen groups continue to push for the state to act on a series of legislatively mandated reports that concluded more protections are needed for residents in the areas where Marcellus gas production has been booming.

. ...

In the Pitt study, researchers cross-referenced the birth outcomes for more than 15,000 babies born in Washington, Westmoreland and Butler counties between 2007 and 2010 with the proximity of their mother’s homes to wells drilled using horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies. They divided the data into four groups, depending on the number and proximity of wells within a 10-mile radius of the mother’s homes.

Mothers whose homes were closest to a high density of wells were 34 percent more likely to have babies who were “small for gestational age” than mothers whose homes fell in the bottom 25 percent, the study said.

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[HassleCat]

1. My guess would be

The confederate flags are causing the problem.

Seriously, there is much rural poverty in the areas where fracking is most intense. Many of the people who work for the oil and gas industry chase the work around the country, living an unsettled life, almost like migrant workers. Well, they are migrant workers, I guess, and we would expect they have some of the health problems associated with migrant workers in general. It's kind of a tough life.