Living among fracking wells is linked to higher rates of hospitalizations and deaths due to heart attacks, according to a new study.
The study, published in the Journal of Environmental Research, compared heart attack rates in Pennsylvania counties with fracking to demographically similar counties in New York where fracking is banned.
“There’s a large body of literature linking air pollution with poor cardiovascular health and heart attacks, but this is really the first study to look at this from a population level related to fracking,” Elaine Hill, a researcher at the University of Rochester Medical Center and one of the study’s co-authors, told EHN.
Read More…
Photo Credit: Mark Schmerling/FracTracker Alliance
Day: May 14, 2021
“We all had to deal with it. I know at least every person I grew up with within this area,” Kashmere Garden’s resident Nakia Osbourne said. “I’m 44 right now, almost 45. Half of them have a child that has a disability.”
Osbourne’s son, Charlie, was one of them. He was born with autism and severe intellectual disabilities. He died in 2014 at the age of 13 from a burn accident, but Osbourne said his life proves what everyone already knows. Creosote, once used at the Union Pacific facility, hit the community hard.
“They destroyed a lot of people’s lives,” Osburne said. “Because people were dying from cancer. Mothers were dying from cancer like crazy. And now the kids. Now it’s trickling down to the kids. The great-grandkids.”
Read More…
Photo Credit: Lucio Vasquez/Houston Public Media