The University of Pennsylvania's
Center of Excellence in Environmental Toxicology is leading the effort to assess the health risks of natural gas extraction. They are heading up a national coalition of institutions set to analyze and map the risks of fracking.
The aim is to bring academic discipline to the unresolved national debate, which pits an industry that denies any link between fracking and environmental contamination against those who assert that fracking poisons air and water with natural and man-made chemicals that can cause cancer, birth defects and other illnesses.
“There is an enormous amount of rhetoric on both sides,” said Trevor M. Penning, head of the Penn toxicology center and the driving force behind the Environmental Health Sciences Core Center Hydrofracking Working Group. “We felt that because we are situated in Pennsylvania, we had a duty to get on top of what was known and what was not known.”
Original source: The New York Times
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