The latest attempt by researchers to portray natural gas development as harmful to public health fails in its efforts to show hospitalization rates increased with shale drilling in Pennsylvania, pushing instead an unexplained and loosely based connection to cases of urinary and skin diseases in unspecified Marcellus Shale counties.

In a study released last week, researchers from the University of Rochester and Oregon State University examined hospitalization rates from 2003 – 2014 in Pennsylvania counties to find any relationships to the number of wells drilled or the density of wells in those counties. In the end, they found few connections to natural gas and provided even fewer specifics for potential causes or locations of their findings. EID has the three key things to keep in mind about this study on EIDHealth.org.