Another Fracking Fear Disproved

The anti-science hydraulic fracturing opponents have just been handed another defeat. 

[T]he Associated Press reports that opponents of fracking—including John Fox, the Oscar-nominated director of the anti-fracking film “the Sky is Pink”—claim that chemicals from fracking cause breast cancer in nearby towns, citing spikes in breast cancer rates around sites of intensive drilling.
Yet so far there’s precious little evidence for this claim. Various impartial parties, including the Texas Cancer Registry and Susan G. Komen for the Cure, can’t find any link between fracking and breast cancer:

David Risser, an epidemiologist with the Texas Cancer Registry, said in an email that researchers checked state health data and found no evidence of an increase in the counties where the spike supposedly occurred.

And Susan G. Komen for the Cure, a major cancer advocacy group based in Dallas, said it sees no evidence of a spike, either.

“We don’t,” said Chandini Portteus, Komen’s vice president of research, adding that they sympathize with people’s fears and concerns, but “what we do know is a little bit, and what we don’t know is a lot” about breast cancer and the environment.

Likewise, fears about deep-underground radioactive water getting into public water supplies have turned out to be baseless after extensive testing by the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority.