Announced in 2012 and recently the recipient of a $1 million grant, The Geisinger Health System's study of fracking has become quickly THE most important health fracking study in the country. Indeed, even before it reports any findings, the Geisinger study is already shaping policy in New York, where Governor Cuomo reportedly backed off a plan to authorize 40 test wells, in order to wait for the first results from the Geisinger study. http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/ap-ny-fracking-held-cuomo-rfk-jr-talk-18636918.
Geisinger Health Systems (http://www.geisinger.org/) provides excellent medical care to hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians in central Pennsylvania, including in areas where drilling is concentrated. It has patient records for large population groups that live near gas wells or distant from them. Geisinger also conducts medical research and is rigorously scientific.
Geisinger received a $1 million grant from a foundation that is not a participant in the shale gas wars.
http://www.timesunion.com/news/article/1-million-grant-for-study-of-fracking-4288597.php. Geisinger's study will be the most thorough, rigorous, scientific examination of any possible impacts from the gas drilling process. It will be the best health study of gas drilling and actual patients in the nation.
As such, the Geisinger Health System's fracking health study will substantially impact gas drilling regulatory policy. Indeed, as events in New York show, Geisinger's health study is already doing so!
The more good science, the better. As a still healthy citizen of Ft. Worth throughout the entire history of the drilling of the prolific Barnett shale gas field, I wonder if this new study will incorporate the wealth of data generated here in Texas over the 12+ years of development.
ReplyDeleteAgreed on more good science the better. My understanding of the Geisinger study is that it will look at if/how fracking impacts health by studying only their patients in Central Pennsylvania.
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