Fracked Again

HB1950, Pennsylvania's natural gas impact fee bill, is 173 pages long and we are gradually learning what it says. An ethical as well as a public health issue associated with the bill has been raised by Dr. Bernard Goldstein of the Pitt School of Public Health and his colleague Jill Kriesky. You've probably heard of the Halliburton loophole—the federal law that allows drilling companies to keep the formula for fracking fluid secret, even though it is known to contain toxic elements. HB1950 preserves that secrecy, and requires physicians to violate medical ethics in order to maintain it.

A physician treating a patient suffering from toxic exposure can request the proprietary formula for fracking fluid, but must sign a legally binding nondisclosure agreement. He or she can use it only to treat the specific patient for whom the information is requested. A physician may not use the information to treat another patient suffering the same symptoms, or to warn neighbors of the danger. Above all, doctors may not reveal the industry's secret formula in order to alert the general public to a public health hazard—which is almost certainly what the industry is most concerned about.

Imagine that one of your family members dies because a physician was forbidden to warn them about a known carcinogen in your drinking water. I guess that's the public health policy we can expect when our state government is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the natural gas industry.