Docs: US should halt fracking, study it

The United States should declare a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing for natural gas in populated areas until the health effects are better understood, doctors said at a conference on the drilling process Monday.

Gas producers should set up a foundation to finance studies on the process, known as fracking, and independent research is also needed, said Jerome Paulson, a pediatrician at George Washington University School of Medicine in Washington.

Fracking injects water, sand and chemicals into deep shale formations to free trapped natural gas. Production with the method helped increase supplies, cutting prices 32 percent last year. The industry, though, hasn't disclosed enough information on chemicals used, Paulson said, raising concerns about tainted drinking water supplies and a call for peer-reviewed studies on the effects.

The EPA is weighing nationwide regulation. New York is considering whether to open the state to the process.

"We've got to push the pause button, and maybe we've got to push the stop button," said Adam Law, an endocrinologist at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, at a conference in Arlington, Va., that's the first to examine criteria for studying the process.

The gas industry has used hydraulic fracturing for 65 years in 30 states with a "demonstrable history of safe operations," Chris Tucker, a spokesman for Energy In Depth, a Washington-based research and advocacy group financed by oil and gas interests, said in an email.

U.S. natural gas production rose to a record 2.5 trillion cubic feet in October, a 15 percent increase from October 2008.

A moratorium on fracking pending more research "would be reasonable," said Paulson, who heads the Mid-Atlantic Center for Children's Health and the Environment in Washington.

A top scientist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last week that fluids used in hydraulic fracturing contain "potentially hazardous chemical classes." The compounds include petroleum distillates, volatile organic compounds and glycol ethers, said Christopher Portier, director of the CDC's National Center for Environmental Health.