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Study Finds Higher Rates of Premature Birth Near Fracking Sites (jhsph.edu)
An anonymous reader writes: Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have published a study (abstract) noting that pregnant women are more likely to give birth prematurely if they live close to fracking sites. The researchers used data from 40 counties in Pennsylvania, in which 10,946 babies were born between January 2009 and January 2013. They compared the data with the fast spread of fracking sites across the state — thousands have been built since 2006.
"The researchers found that living in the most active quartile of drilling and production activity was associated with a 40 percent increase in the likelihood of a woman giving birth before 37 weeks of gestation (considered pre-term) and a 30 percent increase in the chance that an obstetrician had labeled their pregnancy "high-risk," a designation that can include factors such as elevated blood pressure or excessive weight gain during pregnancy. When looking at all of the pregnancies in the study, 11 percent of babies were born preterm, with the majority (79 percent) born between 32 and 36 weeks."
"The researchers found that living in the most active quartile of drilling and production activity was associated with a 40 percent increase in the likelihood of a woman giving birth before 37 weeks of gestation (considered pre-term) and a 30 percent increase in the chance that an obstetrician had labeled their pregnancy "high-risk," a designation that can include factors such as elevated blood pressure or excessive weight gain during pregnancy. When looking at all of the pregnancies in the study, 11 percent of babies were born preterm, with the majority (79 percent) born between 32 and 36 weeks."
Why are we letting business men kill civilians? Civil war is coming.
In the fields. They aren't called Sooners for nothing.
“The growth in the fracking industry has gotten way out ahead of our ability to assess what the environmental and, just as importantly, public health impacts are,”
So fix your ability to assess the impacts. Clearly it's broken, if it can't scale.
I'm not a shill for the fracking industry. However, a question comes to my mind: Is it possible that it is not the fracking itself, but the stress of knowing that you live near the fracking?
I wonder if they could model this with mice just to get a little more info on the effects of fracking pollutants.
Sooners - Oklahoma.
Bed wetting morons - Pennsylvania
Billions of dollars paid out to breast Implant patients...with zero scientific evidence of harm.
This survey is Junk Science just like most of the science envirowackos use to support their Luddite fanaticism.
I'm not discounting the possibility that there may be a causal relationship here but from what I see of the article and abstract they only looked at data between 2009 and 2012. Is it possible that these sites have a preexisting condition that would cause higher levels of preterm birth? They should expand their data analysis to a larger period before the fracking occurred. This way we can at the very least see if there is a stronger correlation here and move forward.
While excavating fracking sites, rusty canteens from the Bush wars were found five feet below the surface. The logos on those canteens? "NATO." Everything we've been told about the past is a lie.
Hospitals near fracking sites saw unusually high concentrations of premature births in 2012.
Is this really the world we want our children to grow up in?
If you think Exxon is what they claim, think again: in 2008, the night before the government bailout, NATO accepted over $150 million in donations from Exxon.
Wall Street has all but confirmed that they have rigged the markets according to instructions from Exxon, which has been under secret leadership by Dick Cheney for over 2 years now.
Now that you know the truth, save your family and friends. Let them know the truth.
Another researcher who has no clue about correlation and causation. On the same basis it is proven you are much more likely to catch cancer if you live in a rainy state than a dry state. This is not a scientific study, it is propaganda.
Achille Talon
Hop!
with out knowing what was going on before fracking began the study is useless. Go back 20 tears prior to the study and let us know what you find.
Hint: If you're going to argue that fracking is safe or even actually good for health, you can pick plenty of arguments from yesterday's discussion.
I mean, if the arguments dismissing your favorite source of cheap energy as being the cause of 20x-50x higher rates in some health issue are working, they certainly should work even better for 30%-40% increases, right ?
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
Right. And, this just in... Study finds 65% those involved in fatal auto accidents ate French Fries in the week before the accident :-/
Give me a break.
More lies by the leftist environmental neo-pagans.
an ill wind that blows no good
Perhaps fracking tends to go on in lower and/or lower middle income areas where people do not watch out for their own health enough.
Fracking jobs might also attract a demographic more like to have less healthy activities and women more likely to work while pregnant.
Some causes of premature births:
-You're younger than 17 or older than 35.
-You smoke or use illegal drugs.
-You've had second-trimester miscarriages during previous pregnancies, or you've had three or more elective abortions.
-You have pre- eclampsia, kidney disease, heart disease, diabetes, an infection or other medical condition.
-You're not receiving antenatal care from a qualified healthcare provider.
-You have a cervical infection, such as group B streptococci, gonorrhoea, chlamydia, syphilis, trichomoniasis or gardnerella.
-job involves extremely strenuous, physical work.
All that shaking is bound to loosen stuff up, then gravity takes over.
I suppose fracking can happen at random places. However, most of the land area in the US is characterized by lower than average socioeconomic status, as expressed on a per capita basis, for the simple reasons that cities tend to have higher population and higher per capita income. This way, even a random site selection leads to a bias in the welfare of the neighboring population. Add to this that fracking is more restricted in and around large cities.
While the study may have accounted for these factors, the linked abstract and the long article are silent on these.
And of course there may be a lot of other factors even if they have.
Rubbish.
Obviously Pennsylvanians and Oklahomans are dropping dead because their diets don't include enough iodine, leading to increased uptake-
Oh wait. That was yesterday's crappy anti-energy 'study'. Next up: Wind turbines will make all birds go extinct.
The cause may be in the environment, and not due to fracking itself. Did they check the records before the fracking industry move in? Was it always there? It may just have been an environmental issue that coincides with the land features that trap the gas in the first place.
If you want to stop the spread of fracking, you need to convince these women to carry their children full term.
I read the article* and couldn't find anything that linked the measurement of fracking activity to the measurement of premature births.
There was a lot of warning verbiage about fracking and a lot of warning verbiage about premature births. They wrapped the two items together without any scientific backing and even stated that their research is still in "infancy" (pun intended?). They mention some points that it could be stress or something else, etc.
Basically its a prematurely (eh?) written article that is more emotional than factual. Clearly its meant to stir up the "Think of the children" angle for further funding into this research. Which I agree, more research needs to be done and I guess this is the only way to fight the industry and politicians. But that article had no right to be posted on Johns Hopkins website, the school just lost some credibility there.
* = I am sorry but you can't take my Slashdot card... I ummm... misplaced it.
living in an area where the water, air, and soil are polluted with dangerous chemicals, can actually have a negative effect on one's health? Who would've known. The scientific conclusions that come out of that big country in the West these days... wow.
Does fracking cause this, or do poor people with already statistically bad health outcomes live near fracking sites?
It's not as if Millionaires with nice health insurance live on top of fracking sites.
Another liberal moonbat lie. Liberals lie about everything.
Age and marital status of the women being studied?
Cause an equally nonscientific explanation is that young girls get knocked up by "DrillBillys".
Being an unwed mother or having a shotgun wedding causes stress. which isn't good for pregnancies.
So the first study looks at environmental causes. This is a possible social explanation.
Maybe we can study genetic disposition?
If they didn't, they'd be complete idiots.
Or, more likely, just very well paid. The entire field of environmental studies is sadly rife with rigged studies, often because the researchers or the people funding the research "know" ahead of time what the result SHOULD be, and the results will match that pre-ordained "understanding".
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Want to induce labor? Spicy foods or frakking.
Too many humans. Not enough fossil fuel.
Scientist find a higher rate of homicide in areas of the country inhabited by blacks and advise everyone to run away and hide from blacks.
This previous sentence was bullshit but is just as valid as the original article headline. . I do not hate blacks, and I do not hate fracking, but I do hate scientist and the media.
My family had 24 cows, that "slipped" (abnormal termination) a total of 11 calves in 2 years, and our neighbors who bred/trained horses lost HALF their foals on year right after an intense "remediation cycle" of frac'ing dozens of wells on their 2400 acres. No shit man, sulphur compounds do it. Look it up.
There is about the same chance that hydraulic fracturing leads to an increase in premature births as that hydraulic fracturing leads to the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. Unless these women are flagging down Haliburton trucks and swimming in the tanks this is utterly and totally preposterous.
But that won't stop the lawyers from driving in their expensive automobiles to the courthouse to file the law suit and it won't stop the charlatan 'researches' from getting paid big money to testify as expert witnesses.
Agenda science is doing far more harm than hydraulic fracturing, fiction like this 'study' should anger everyone who understands the lasting damage being done between the scientific community and the public.
'I don't know what it's called. I just know the sound it makes, when it takes a man's life.' ~ Four Leaf Tayback
I read the story in your link, and read the link that it provided to the M.D. who made that claim. Neither specified what they're including as a "medical study". Only peer-reviewed, or is a "study" published by a pharmaceutical company on their website being lumped into the mix? 'Cause I can see 50% of all medical studies being bullshit if you lower your definition of what constitutes a medical study to include the latter. I also found it interesting the articles couldn't pull up a few examples. I mean, if there's a 50/50 shot any random medical study will back up your claim, should be easy.
You were critically hit for no damage. The bruise will look nice, and maybe the scars will make good party talk.
Your hypothesis is "it is not the fracking itself, but the stress of knowing that you live near the fracking". How do you teach mice to be irrationally afraid of something?
This reminds of the 1980's AIDS joke about testing on rats. First, they had to teach them anal sex.
what you are saying that you back it up with your name. Corporate whores and apologists are a dime a dozen. Even cheaper when they hide behind their title of coward.
the reasoned study bullshit before you have to admit the truth. And how many lives per dollar do you hope to earn for you and your friends?
It's the increased alcohol in the lower income regions from the incremental fracking money. Much higher correlation numbers.
it has been discovered that every human being who lived in NYC under mayor Bloomberg is either already dead or will die some day. Do you think THIS fact will get hyped by a Bloomberg entity? It's a correlation/causation thing too, and the horrible effect is more certain, so it's surely just as valid to use it as a solid argument against ever electing a guy named Bloomberg to run anything...
See http://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/maternalinfanthealth/pretermbirth.htm
Yes, because self-evidently no mere scientist could possibly have thought of this until you, Mr AC, came to their aid.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it