The horrific effects of fracking continue to grow with doctors in Pennsylvania now caught up in the web of deceit.
Hydraulic fracturing technology, known as fracking, explodes millions of gallons of toxic chemical solutions deep into the ground in order to free natural gas deposits for drilling companies to exploit for massive profit.
Over 5,000 drilling wells have been blasted across the state of Pennsylvania alone, with more added each and every week.
These toxic chemicals being pumped into the ground are making people in relative proximity to the wells sick – very, very sick – even at low levels of exposure.  Over 85% of the 750 chemicals used in fracking are known carcinogens!
While Pennsylvania law requires drilling companies to inform local doctors what chemicals are being used so that they can properly treat the victims of exposure, it also now requires doctors who are briefed to sign a confidentiality agreement to keep them from telling anyone about what exactly is making these people sick.  This includes informing their own patients as well as other healthcare professionals!
Similar fracking laws are already on the books in Ohio, Texas, and Colorado.
Shockingly, it appears that State authorities have completely rolled over on this issue and have prioritized the “proprietary secrets” of the drilling companies ahead of the needs of public health.
Despite its so called dedication to green technologies and businesses, Federal authorities have also shown no desire to reign in this horrifically damaging technology which is akin to strip mining of decades past.
Why can’t the Obama administration simply require the disclosure of exactly what is being pumped into the ground to dislodge natural gas deposits? Â No doubt if such a move were made, the public outrage and outcry would result in the swift cessation of fracking across the nation.
And those hefty campaign contributions from fracking executives and their operatives would come to a screeching halt.
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Source: Â Pennyslvania Law Gags Doctors
i think you need to check your facts. this is absolutely filled with lies. first of all, hydraulic fracturing cannot even reach the water zone used for drinking water. first we drill what is called a ‘surface hole’ we line it with steel casing and cement it to the surface. wells that go on to be hydraulically fractured are so much deeper than the base of the surface steel casing that it is actually impossible to penetrate that much rock. we are talking about thousands of feet here…..groups such as the EPA and other environmental groups who claim they want a clean environment (but who actually just want to hault production of any natural resource in this country) have been main reason why energy prices are so high. we should be proud that in America we have the stringent rules that allow for a clean environment. You shut down production here and that means more drilling in places that have NO environmental protection. I highly recommend you do some more research.
I work in the Fayetteville Shale with a very large company. You should really try collect facts before writing a blog post. There are actually 4 or 5 chemicals used in the fracing process, along with 99.998 percent of everything else being made up of water and clay. I work along side the guys who put the chemicals in and they use tiny viles of chemicals to put into the mix but you wouldnt know this because you actually dont know what you are talking about. Also the chemicals are pumped down a hole that is lined with solid steel pipe and dont reach actual rock until around 8-10 thousand feet. Since your drinking water is never pulled from anything deeper than 500 feet it is impossible to get sick from this whole process You and the rest of your liberal friends can try to shut down fracing and there wont be an economy left in Oklahoma, Arkansas, and several other states. But hey thanks for your highly researched article is was very informative!!
David, if you read this blog regularly you will realize that Sarah is no liberal. When she does venture away from nutrition and related issues and injects politics, it is always from the right. Which is pretty funny in this case because it actually IS liberals who are concerned about the safety of our earth, air and water, while the right prefers unfettered capitalism in which we’re supposed to believe that the corporations will do what’s “right”. I think we can all see how that’s working out for us, but that evidence does not stop the right from denying climate change and other demonstrable scientific facts. We on the left believe in a fact based world, while the right is wedded to the “faith based” world. Good luck to us with that.
To be fair, the left sometimes DOES over reach with efforts to control our health and nutrition, and it’s just as bad for us when that happens. But for me, if there is going to be extremism, I prefer it’s on the side of protecting health and our environment, rather than the laissez faire attitude towards commerce from the right. Pick your poison, I guess.
To be clearer on things like climate change– the issue isn’t whether or not there is climate change, it’s about what has caused it and it is debatable how much influence mankind has had versus nature itself. You seem to forget that a number of our best universities and colleges do have Republicans in them also. There are Republicans that do care about the environment just like there are Democrats who don’t. There are some wealthier folks that do give a lot of money to helping what you consider “left wing concerns” and they are Republicans. You can’t group people anymore. And you definitely can’t say all Republicans are practicing a faith, especially in this day and age. That means that Democrats aren’t and I know just as many who are very faithful. Obviously on this site alone there are people of differing political views who are all concerned about the safety of fracking. I don’t like Michelle Obama’s nutrition pyramid but I do appreciate that she’s made people more aware of eating well and planting a garden. It’s a start. Whenever you assume a whole list of things because of party affiliation you know 99% of the time you’re going to be wrong about something. Like Fred Rogers always said, “look for the helpers” because that is where you’ll see the good in people.
thanks for sharing this post, I made some scanning about the issue and base on pacificfreepress.com article dated 8/26/12 the real effect of fracking operations according to Research “strongly implicates exposure to gas drilling operations in serious health effects on humans, companion animals, livestock, horses, and wildlife,” according to Dr. Michelle Bamberger, a veterinarian, and Dr. Robert E. Oswald,a biochemist and professor of molecular medicine at Cornell University. Their study, published in New Solutions, an academic journal in environmental health, documents evidence of milk contamination, breeding problems, and cow mortality in areas near fracking operations as higher than in areas where no fracking occurred. Drs. Bamberger and Oswald noted that some of the symptoms present in humans from what may be polluted water from fracking operations include rashes, headaches, dizziness, vomiting, and severe irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat. For animals, the symptoms often led to reproductive problems and death.
Hysteria and fear… Shame on all of you…. we need to promote healthy minds in healthy bodies. Learn to think for yourself, and in this day and age you can research just about anything in the world. If one brings up an issue, then actual facts are needed to substantiate what you are saying. How many are ill, what are symptoms, where has this been documented ?? God is in charge and we need to respect our beautiful earth…. are the droughts which have affected corn crops etc so bad? Is it natures way of saying “enough GMOs” ?? So much to think about, so little time …..
I just can’t believe that ANYONE would think it’s okay to pump god knows how many litres of toxic chemicals into the earth. Seriously. No matter what the result, it CAN’T be good!
Maybe the answer is Rainwater Harvesting.
Nope. You can get put in jail for that now too. http://cnsnews.com/news/article/oregon-man-sentenced-30-days-jail-collecting-rainwater-his-property
I certainly think the most shocking — well not shocking, but disturbing is government on behalf of business interfering in what a doctor can tell a patient.
What’s interesting in the comments is people trusting in the safety of fracking. I have to admit I’m very new to this information. But after listening to the lecture about the “Oiling of America,” learning about big Pharma and big Agriculture, I am more willing to question business and government.
If you’re not questioning you haven’t been hurt by their lies yet.
My politics used to lead me to question government and be more trusting of business. I’ve awaken to the reality that the left and the right are just blind people describing an elephant.
Which four states have agreements to “muzzle” doctors?
Did anyone read the About Us on the page the article is linked to? Bias maybe? The party for socialism, might have something against corporations, at least acknowledge the bias.
“The Party for Socialism and Liberation is a working-class party of leaders and activists from many different struggles, founded to promote the movement for revolutionary change.
Capitalism–the system in which all wealth and power is held by a tiny group of billionaires and their state–is the source of the main problems confronting humanity today: imperialist war, poverty, exploitation, layoffs, unemployment, racism, sexism, lesbian/gay/bi/trans oppression, environmental destruction, mass imprisonment, unionbusting and more.
We are fighting for socialism, a system where the wealth of society belongs to those who produce it–the workers–and is used in a planned and sustainable way for the benefit of all. In place of greed, domination and exploitation, we stand for solidarity, friendship and cooperation between all peoples.
The Party for Socialism and Liberation seeks to bring together leaders and organizers from the many struggles taking place across the country. The most crucial requirement for membership is the dedication to undertake this most important and most necessary of all tasks–building a new revolutionary workers’ party in the heart of world imperialism.
At the same time as we aim for revolution in this country, we stand for defense of the existing workers’ states, the national liberation movements, and for workers and oppressed people around the world. The magnitude of our tasks will be matched by our determination to win.”
Socialism is a joke and I can’t believe Sarah actually reads their website. That still doesn’t change the facts about fracking, no matter who is talking about it.
I live in France – we don’t have to worry about losing our healthcare when we lose a job.
I would LOVE to retire to the states, but I like a social safety net – especially when we pay our taxes for it! And about your cherished private companies running everything streamlined: in France, 4% of healthcare costs go to administering it: in the states, it’s 25%: people are making money off healthcare and it shows. Somehow ‘socialist’ countries run things with the ideal that ‘more people have more’.
That’s the opposite of what my best friend who is French and lives north of Paris said. She said the economy there is very bad. Her husband’s job was lost and they live a much more frugal life since Europe as a whole has been in this economic crisis. One just needs to look at Greece to see how that all turns out. The US has always been the richest country with the best healthcare. We’ve also been the most ignorant to our food health so the cost of insurance kept going up to cover the cost of all of these people who eat crappy food. French teens have adopted American diets especially McDonalds and you will see the result in the expense of healthcare. The money for government healthcare comes from the people of that nation as our government just pointed out with the new healthcare tax. The US government has never been able to run a large social program with efficiency and low cost. Not one. The US will never be socialist… It’s not what our system is based on and could not be successful.
Hmmm, isn’t France one of the countries on the verge of bankruptcy looking to others to bail them out?
How about my classmates in Indiana that OWN a restaurant and employ people? They clear 35,000 a year. He has 3 stints, and that’s when he could afford health insurance. Now he has none. What is allowing such disparity to exist? Profits are the only end game?
At least in France we don’t have MASH units going through the country where people line up before dawn waiting to get medical treatment or advice. Has that been featured in your corporate controled news in the states?
There’s an economic downturn the the west since we’ve outsourced jobs to slave labor in China. Look up TPP – it’s called NAFTA on steroids. The government now IS the corporations. You don’t have to bail us out: you’re going down first. Read, “Confessions of an Economic Hitman”.
Unfortunately under this new healthcare program, your friend will now be either forced into buying health insurance that is very expensive through the government or he will be fined. I have a friend in the same situation. She has only one employee and now she and her employee face expensive consequences. We need health insurance run like car insurance– affordable and people have a choice which company to go with. The real crime is what hospitals and doctors charge for basic procedures. I’m in alternative medicine anyways– I think much of what is done is unneccessary anyways. So being forced into a socialist medical system sounds like a death wish for me at the worst and at the least a big waste of money.
Works like magic: just put the tag ‘socialist’ to anything, and it’s instantly discredited!
We should have the same magic work with ‘unregulated free markets’.
Maybe you’re not at the age when your friends are holding fundraisers to help cover their out of whack healthcosts…..and some of them even have insurance!
Germany….another socialist healthcare country sanctions homeopathy. They keep healthcare costs down that way.
Helen, you are right– there are lots of other countries that recognize homeopathy as a mainstream medical practice. Here in the US they do not. I think that the NCH is trying to gain inclusion into the gov’t healthcare coverage, but right now it’s not covered by any health insurance so that hasn’t happened yet. The US was the place where the antibiotic and the AMA took over our medical system and pushed out homeopathy which used to have hospitals and doctors in competition with allopathic doctors for our healthcare. Most people here don’t know that. Where European countries have been practicing socialized medicine for centuries, in the US it will be corrupted by Pharmaceuticals because no one knows what they are doing and they depend on doctors of commerce to determine our health. And you see how that is going. We can’t seem to get any good data on the safety of our energy plans here (as this post addresses) and I don’t think the medical community does any better. Just look at the data on Gardisil. They aren’t reporting the number of girls who have side-effects and who have died. It’s not a necessary vaccine (and I don’t believe any are really) but the gov’t is willing to risk some girls’ lives just in the hope to solve a small part of a larger problem. So when you trust the government to take over large programs, then you are trusting that they make a decision that is best for you as an individual as well as everyone across the country. My health hits a lot closer to home than my sources of energy right now– and even that seems to hit too close to home as I live in Pennsylvania. We already have Three Mile Island and the possibility of something going wrong.
You certainly have a point, Beth. It’s not the same ‘government by the people’ anymore.
A broken clock is right twice a day.
And as far as any politician or president either past or present, I agree that NONE of them would do anything but pad their pockets with the money from the lobbyists who want to frack. I was thinking of making a sign to put on my lawn that says: NO FREAKIN’ FRACKING!!! LOL