Industry-Funded Study Shows Child Cancer Rates Not Affected by Oil & Gas Operations

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From Energy in Depth:
Researchers from the EpidStat Institute and David Garabrant PLLC recently concluded a studycomparing childhood cancer rates in Pennsylvania counties before and after oil and natural gas operations. The results, in the authors’ words, “offer comfort concerning health effects of [hydraulic fracturing] on childhood cancers.” The study itself, available for purchase at the website linked, also offers the following additional statements:
Analyses by the number of wells in the county and by well type for all cancers, leukemia, and [central nervous system] CNS tumors were unremarkable.
Although it is difficult to draw etiological inferences from county-level data, the results of this study are comforting because they suggest that the incidence of childhood cancer, childhood leukemia, or childhood CNS tumors did not increase after [drilling and hydraulic fracturing].
Regardless, we found no evidence that childhood leukemia was elevated in any county after [hydraulic fracturing] HF commenced. In fact, those counties that were most impacted by HF activities had a similar number of total cancer cases and a reduced, not statistically significant number of leukemia cases after drilling compared with the period of time before drilling.
Nevertheless, we found no evidence that persons living in HF counties experienced higher childhood cancer rates overall or for childhood leukemia specifically after HF drilling commenced.
Now before we get much further, it should be made known the study was funded by America’s Natural Gas Alliance (ANGA), which some opposed to natural gas development may find unnerving. It has been independently peer reviewed, though, and no conflicts of interest were claimed by the authors.
Read the whole article here. 

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