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Children living in fracking sites at birth were two to three times more likely to be diagnosed with leukemia between the ages of 2 and 7 than those who were not, according to a new study.
The study, which appears in Environmental Health Perspectives, took into account other factors that could influence cancer risk.
The registry-based study included nearly 2,500 children in Pennsylvania, 405 of whom were diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the most common type of cancer in children.
Acute lymphoblastic leukemia, also called ALL, is a type of leukemia that arises from mutations in lymphoid immune cells. Although long-term survival rates are high, children who survive this condition may be at increased risk for other health problems, developmental problems, and psychological problems.
Unconventional oil and gas (UOG) development, better known as fracking (short for hydraulic fracturing), is a method of extracting gas and oil from shale rock. The process involves injecting water, sand and chemicals into bedrock at high pressure, allowing gas and oil to flow into a well and then be collected for market.
For communities living nearby, UOG development can pose a number of potential threats. Chemical threats include, for example, air pollution from vehicle emissions and well and road construction, and water pollution from hydraulic fracturing or wastewater spills.
Hundreds of chemicals have been reported to have been used in UOG injection water or detected in wastewater, some of which are known or suspected to cause cancer. The paucity of data on the association between UOG and childhood cancer outcomes has fueled public concern about potential cancer clusters in heavily drilled regions and calls for further research and government action.
“Unconventional oil and gas development can use and release chemicals that have been linked to cancer, so the potential for children living near UOG to be exposed to these chemical carcinogens is a major concern for to public health,” says lead author Nicole Deziel, associate professor. in epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health.
“Studies of UOG exposure and cancer are extremely few. We set out to conduct a high-quality study to further investigate this potential relationship,” says first author Cassandra Clark, a postdoctoral associate at the Yale Cancer Center. . “Our results indicate that UOG exposure may be an important risk factor for ALL, especially for children exposed in utero.”
The study also found that drinking water could be an important route of exposure to oil and gas-related chemicals. The authors applied a new exposure metric in this study that they call “IDups” (which stands for “inverse distance to the nearest unconventional oil and gas well”).
This means that the researchers identified UOG wells that were within a child’s watershed area, the area from which a drinking water well that would serve their home would likely draw water, and they calculate the distance from the house to the nearest of these UOG wells. UOG wells located within the watershed area are expected to impact the household drinking water supply the most, they say.
“Previous health studies have found links between proximity to oil and gas drilling and various health outcomes in children,” says Deziel. “This study is one of the few to focus on drinking water specifically and the first to apply a new metric designed to capture potential exposure through this pathway.”
This work adds to a growing body of literature on UOG exposure and children’s health that is used to inform policy, such as setback distances (the minimum distance required between a private residence or other sensitive location and a UOG well).
Current setback distances are the subject of much debate in the US, with some calling for setback distances to be extended beyond 305 meters (1,000 ft) and up to 1,000 meters (3,281 ft). The allowable setback in Pennsylvania, where the study was conducted, is 500 feet or 152 meters.
“Our findings of increased ALL risk at distances of two kilometers or more from UOG operations, together with evidence from numerous other studies, suggest that existing setback distances, which can be as little as 150 feet, they don’t protect children’s health enough,” Clark says. “We hope that studies like ours will be factored into the ongoing policy discussion about UOG fallback distances.”
Source: Yale University