Medact’s new report, Health & Fracking: the impacts & opportunity costs, concludes that hydraulic fracturing for shale gas (‘fracking’) poses significant risks to public health and calls for an immediate moratorium to allow time for a full and comprehensive health and environmental impact assessment (HIA) to be completed.
Health & Fracking: the impacts and opportunity costs concludes that fracking generates numerous public health risks, including:
- Potential health hazards associated with air pollution and water contamination: these include toxins that are linked to increased risks of cancer, birth defects and lung disease;
- Negative health impacts associated with noise, traffic, spoilage of the natural environment, and local social and economic disruption.
- The indirect effects of climate change produced by greenhouse gas emissions.
The report has been supported by a letter, which calls for shale gas development to be put on hold, published in the British Medical Journal, signed by Medact and the Climate and Health Council and senior health professionals.
The report states that the precise level of risk to human health cannot be calculated and emphasises that intensive levels of fracking activity could pose additional risks in the UK when compared to experiences elsewhere because of the proximity and size of surrounding populations. In addition, the report describes how the regulatory system for fracking is currently incomplete and inadequately robust.
Published March 2015.