BREAKING: Mountaintop removal linked to increased cancer risk
Posted July 27, 2011 in Environmental Justice, Health and the Environment
Just weeks after scientists discovered a tie between mountaintop removal and birth defects, another peer-reviewed study indicates that cancer rates may also be higher in communities affected by MTR.
The new study, published in the Journal of Community Health this week, compared self-reported cancer rates in two rural areas in West Virginia: the Coal River Valley, which is heavily affected by mountaintop removal, and Pocohontas County, which is not.
The odds for reporting cancer were twice as high in the mountaintop mining environment compared to the non-mining environment in ways not explained by age, sex, smoking, occupational exposure, or family cancer history.
And that means the region-wide cancer toll from mountaintop removal could be astonishing. Extrapolating from the results in Coal River,
If the rates found in this study represent the region, [this] translates to an additional 60,000 people with cancer in central Appalachian mountaintop mining communities.
As with the birth defects study, this bombshell is hardly the last word on public health impacts from mountaintop removal. It demands follow up and further research. The study authors make several suggestions for improving upon their study design and replicating their research in other communities. They also make it clear that these findings are part of a larger story about health disparities in Appalachia.
But this research does demand some immediate answers. As evidence mounts that mountaintop removal is literally killing people, why is it still going on? Why haven't the Obama administration or leaders in Congress taken bigger steps to curb it?
And as for coal industry lobbyists and their allies in Congress, who are working hard to deregulate mountaintop removal, how do they sleep at night?
