By OcJim
Jeannie Moten and her niece have recurring skin lesions. The good news is that it wasn’t cancerous. The bad news is that Dr. Amy Pare has no idea what causes the sores. The suspicion points to a natural gas well less than a half mile from Jeannie Moten’s home in Avella, Pennsylvania.
Adding to the suspicion is the fact that the gas company employs hydraulic fracturing, called fracking, which involves high-pressure injection of water, sand, and undisclosed chemicals to fracture the shale formation, freeing oil and gas deposits.
The practice is getting increasing criticism by environmentalists, activists, some Democrats and most importantly residents in fracking areas. Fracking is linked to earthquakes, polluted well water, chemical poisoning, and caustic, sometimes flammable water coming out of faucets.
Further adding fire (excuse the pun) to the historically secretive practice is the fact that Dr. Pare drew samples from the stricken Moten family and their neighbors, finding abnormal chemicals in their bodies: hippuric acid, phenol, and mandelic acid. Since the time that Vice President Dick Cheney blessed the use of fracking by his former company, Halliburton, federal law forbids revealing the chemicals used in the process.
Now a new Pennsylvania state law, passed recently by the Republican-dominated legislature and signed by Republican governor, Tom Corbett, says that gas drillers must disclose the chemicals used in fracking, but only if health care professionals sign a confidentiality agreement. The vague and ill-defined law leaves doctors with the threat of suits by patients if they don’t sign and litigation by the gas company if they do sign and later reveal the information to anyone.
Environmental groups and opposing lawmakers said the provision was slipped into the legislation behind closed doors by industry-friendly legislators and signed by Governor Corbett. Governor Tom Corbett is known recently for his cavalier “close your eyes” comment for abortion-seeking women forced to look at fetal ultrasound exams, mandated by another Pennsylvania law.
Progressives vociferously criticize Republicans who chant “small government,” for their hypocrisy in passing or supporting legislation that restrict rights, curtails freedoms, harms individual well-being, and intrudes on individual privacy, like a string of laws and policies that include banning birth control, allowing unrestricted pollution, removing duly-elected city leaders in Michigan cities, blocking regulation of Wall Street, banning unions and generally targeting women’s rights.
When Republicans advocate for plutocrats in all instances, especially against the health and safety of the people, it indicates their commitment to rich backers, not to the people. Time and again, Republicans at all levels of government vote against the majority, as shown by polls. Sixty-nine percent are opposed to Medicare cuts. Seventy-two percent favor raising taxes on Americans making over $250,000 per year. Seventy-five percent oppose tax credits for oil companies like Exxon-Mobil with record profits.
Republicans still vote down eliminating tax credits for big energy. Paul Ryan still proposes a budget that would kill Medicare, give more tax breaks to the rich, and cut social spending. Throughout the country Republicans cut education spending, kill unions, restrict voting rights, and coddle big business.
We might ask, “Why would Republicans risk such behavior, especially before elections”?
Simple. People still vote against their own interests.
Perhaps, fracking is putting lesions of impairment on our brains!!
————————————————————————————-
Follow more from this author on Facebook here ——-> Common Good
