Fracking Research is Big Business

From the Washington Times:

Millions of dollars already have been spent, and much more soon will be dumped into a litany of studies looking at fracking’s impact on water and air quality and at possible links to cancer and other diseases. 

The industry argues that there are no such links; indeed, studies have shown little or no health risks or effects related to fracking. But other reports have claimed the opposite. 

Many analysts believe there simply hasn’t been enough research to draw firm conclusions. 

“There’s a lot of rhetoric on both sides. You can only get at the truth if you base it on sound science, and that’s where the problem is. There’s very little sound science” on the subject, said Trevor Penning, head of the University of Pennsylvania's Center of Excellence in Environmental Toxicology. 

Mr. Penning and colleagues at the University of Texas, Harvard University and other institutions are seeking funding from the federal government to help gather that science. The center already has begun a health survey of residents in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale region, home to one of the largest natural gas deposits in the world and an area where fracking is widely employed.

So, with the industry buying pro-fracking research and the fracktivists buying anti-fracking research, the objective researcher turns to the federal government to have the taxpayers fund their research.

Read the whole article here. 

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