LETTER: Oil and gas agencies support review of cancer cases
Oil and gas agencies support review of cancer cases
Like everyone across the region, we find recent news of Ewing sarcoma cases in the Canon-McMillan school district deeply saddening (“State Department of Health investigating potential cancer cluster in Washington County,” March 24). While we cannot comprehend the grief of all those personally affected, we felt it important to share information on this very emotional and complex issue.
Members of our organizations, including countless Western Pennsylvanians, many of whom send their kids to the Canon-McMillan School District, are absolutely committed to protecting and enhancing public health and safety. To be clear, our industry supports fact-based and objective scientific research and, rather than sensationalizing tragedy, we believe it is critical to look to objective medical experts on these matters.
According to the American Cancer Society, “there are no known lifestyle-related or environmental causes of Ewing tumors.” Further, a medical expert at UPMC Children’s Hospital explained recently in an interview with a local TV affiliate that “we have no data right now showing that there’s any environmental exposure, anything like that, that would lead to one developing Ewing sarcoma.”
Similar cancer issues to what we’ve seen locally, have occurred elsewhere in North Carolina and Georgia – communities where no shale development takes place. In North Carolina, for example, three students from the same graduating class were diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma and, after a complete investigation, the North Carolina Department of Health concluded the “cancer cases occurred within the same Wake Forest ZIP code by chance.”
We take enormous responsibility, on a very personal level, to protect the communities where we’re privileged to live and work and fully support the objective review of health officials into these local Ewing sarcoma instances.
David Spigelmyer
President, Marcellus Shale Coalition{/em}
Dan Weaver
President, Executive Director, Pennsylvania Independent Oil & Gas Association