New Study Links Mountaintop Removal To 60,000 Additional Cancer Cases

[marmar]

New Study Links Mountaintop Removal To 60,000 Additional Cancer Cases


Among the 1.2 million American citizens living in mountaintop removal mining counties in central Appalachia, an additional 60,000 cases of cancer are directly linked to the federally sanctioned strip-mining practice.

That is the damning conclusion in a breakthrough study, released last night in the peer-reviewed Journal of Community Health: The Publication for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention. Led by West Virginia University researcher Dr. Michael Hendryx, among others, the study entitled “Self-Reported Cancer Rates in Two Rural Areas of West Virginia with and Without Mountaintop Coal Mining” drew from a groundbreaking community-based participatory research survey conducted in Boone County, West Virginia in the spring of 2011, which gathered person-level health data from communities directly impacted by mountaintop mining, and compared to communities without mining.

“A door to door survey of 769 adults found that the cancer rate was twice as high in a community exposed to mountaintop removal mining compared to a non-mining control community,” said Hendryx, Associate Professor at the Department of Community Medicine and Director of West Virginia Rural Health Research Center at West Virginia University. “This significantly higher risk was found after control for age, sex, smoking, occupational exposure and family cancer history. The study adds to the growing evidence that mountaintop mining environments are harmful to human health.”

Bottom line: Far from simply being an environmental issue, mountaintop removal is killing American residents. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/640652/new_study_links_mountaintop_removal_to_60%2C000_additional_cancer_cases/

[Uncle Joe]

1. I will kick and recommend this because it seems logical but

do we have a link for this?

Thanks for the thread, marmar.

[marmar]

2. Yes, Uncle Joe. Thank you......I forgot to add the link

nt

[Uncle Joe]

3. Thanks for the link, marmar, they do make a convincing case.

Peace to you.:hi:

[indepat]

4. Such a small price to pay for the joy of more profits for the Masseys of the world and their ilk

:sarcasm: icon is understood in any of my posts wherein such icon would seem appropriate to the reader for: most of what emanates out of Washington, D. C. and happens elsewhere merit fervently cynical sarcasm

[eyeofnewt]

5. coal communities

When we live in the shadow of a coal mine, and our every possession is covered in fine black residue, from our houses to our cars to our children, there is a price. That price is our health. But!! while we suffer, we can enjoy fine food, entertainment (Ted Nugent: "On behalf of the Nugent family, I say, start up the bulldozers and get me some more coal, Massey"), and the fair and balanced truth from none other than Sean Hannity!! Sean down in our neck of the woods! Can you imagine? How we were so honored I do not know; it boggles the mind. The Friends of America rally, held two yrs ago in southern WV which attracted 70,000 people. It's been two yrs and I still can't get over it.

When I see articles such as this one about the cancer rates, I think of how it will be shredded by untruths and the usual arrogant misrepresentation of coal/coal miners by the fair and balanced press, with a few "amusing" caricatures of toothless hillbillies thrown in for good measure.