A recent study linked high-volume hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking, to higher pre-term birth rates, and activists made a lot about it, but a real analysis of the work by Dr. Gil Ross, American Council on Science and Health Senior Director of Medicine and Public Health, showed there was only 11 percent early birth rate among mothers near the drilling sites, while the CDC finds that the national pre-term delivery rate is 11.5 percent.
Writing for Heartland, Isaac Orr, research fellow for energy and environmental policy at The Heartland Institute, notes that the period between 2009 and 2013 didn't even find that pre-term births went up the closer mothers were to wells. That makes sense, of course, since fracking occurs two miles underground. Instead, the authors were likely data dredging and looking for magic in the statistical blips.
