AMA blames fracking secrecy for inconclusive EPA study; wants expanded monitoring

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American American Medical Association Protests Frack Chemical Secrecy

AMA group calls for public disclosure, expanded water monitoring

From an Article by Don Hopey, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, June12, 2015
http://powersource.post-gazette.com/local/2015/06/12/AMA-blasts-secret-shale-records/stories/201506120147

The American Medical Association, citing growing concerns about monitoring and tracking long-term human health impacts caused by shale gas development, is calling for the public disclosure of all chemicals used in the extraction technique known as hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.”

The new policy, adopted Tuesday by the nation’s largest physicians organization at its annual meeting in Chicago, states that in addition to requiring the chemical disclosures, monitoring “should focus on human exposure in well water and surface water and government agencies should share this information with physicians and the public.”

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"Keeping the names of the chemicals secret is preposterous,” said Todd Sack, a physician in Jacksonville, Fla., and author of the AMA’s policy. “It places an unreasonable burden on physicians. The AMA feels that if companies are going to be responsible petroleum and gas explorers and extractors, they need to disclose the chemicals they use and do better water testing. That’s not a radical position.”

Dr. Sack said last week’s U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study on water resource impacts from shale gas development couldn’t make a health impact finding after five years of gathering information, in part because the industry didn’t provide requested chemical data. He noted that 8.4 million people in the U.S. now live within one mile of a shale gas drilling and fracking site, and that the EPA found that at least one chemical used in fracking was concealed from regulators because of proprietary claims at 70 percent of the thousands of shale gas wells drilled in the U.S. (emphasis added)

“If we don’t know what chemicals are being used at specific well sites,” Dr. Sack said, “physicians and public health officials can’t do their jobs.”

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