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 Air pollution has long been known to worsen asthma. But less is
known about the impact of fracking, which involves pumping water,
sand and chemicals into the ground to free oil and gas reserves from
rock formations.
“Residents of communities undergoing (fracking) and those nearby can
be exposed to noise, light, vibration, heavy truck traffic, air
pollution, social disruption and anxiety,” Sara Rasmussen of Johns
Hopkins University in Baltimore told Reuters Health by email.
Rasmussen and colleagues reviewed data on nearly 35,500 asthma
patients treated at the Geisinger Clinic in more than 35 counties in
Pennsylvania from 2005 to 2012. Fracking took off in the state
around the start of the study period; by the end, 6,253 wells had
been drilled.
The researchers identified 20,749 mild asthma flare-ups, when
patients got new drugs prescribed to manage symptoms, 1,870 cases of
moderate worsening when patients visited the emergency department
and 4,782 severe instances when patients were hospitalized.
The asthma patients who lived closest to a large number or bigger
active wells were 50 percent more likely than those living further
away to have severe exacerbations during the site preparation stage,
researchers report in JAMA Internal Medicine.
During the production stage, which can last several years, asthma
patients were more than four times as likely to have mild flare-ups
when they lived closest to bigger or more fracking sites.
The study doesn’t prove fracking causes asthma or makes symptoms
worse, and it also doesn’t explain why asthma flare-ups appear more
likely when people live closer to fracking sites.
One limitation of the study is that researchers didn’t know where
patients worked or what they did for a living, both of which might
influence their proximity to fracking sites. And the analysis was
based on patients’ most recent address, which didn’t account for
residential moves during the study period.
Even so, the analysis is the first to link fracking to objective
respiratory outcomes for asthma patients, the authors conclude.
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Still, after accounting for other factors like obesity and smoking
that might influence whether asthma patients experience
complications, the link was strong, said Dr. Steve Georas, an
environmental health researcher at the University of Rochester
Medical Center in New York who wasn’t involved in the study.
“This study should be a wake-up call to patients and physicians, and
prompt additional research into the reasons for the associations”
between fracking and asthma flares, Georas said by email.
Fracking has proliferated across the U.S. in recent years. In
Pennsylvania alone, fracking supporters say the industry has
supplied hundreds of thousands of jobs and brought in billions of
dollars.
But critics have raised concerns about health risks and
environmental problems such as groundwater contamination, increased
earthquake activity and exacerbation of droughts.
People who live near fracking sites can take precautions to protect
against asthma flare-ups, said Michael Jerrett, an environmental
health researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles who
wasn’t involved in the study.
“Central air conditioning with a proper filter might get some of the
potential contaminants,” Jerrett said by email. “For children,
consider where they play outside, and when you’re planning heavy
exercise you might not want to be in the park right by the fracking
site.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/29PDHqm JAMA Internal Medicine, online July
18, 2016.
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