CU Anschutz In The News

Living near oil and gas wells may increase a woman’s risk of having a baby with a congenital heart defect. “The greatest suspect is the hazardous air pollutants that are emitted during the production of oil and gas,” said the lead author, Lisa M. McKenzie, an assistant research professor at the Colorado School of Public Health at the Anschutz Medical Campus. As a public health issue, the problem is potentially significant. Other studies have linked living near gas and oil sites to premature births, smaller babies, migraines and fatigue. “About 17 million people live near these sites in the U.S.,” Dr. McKenzie said.

Jonathan M. Samet, a pulmonary disease specialist who is dean of the Colorado School of Public Health, said the most recent studies showed negative health effects well below the 12-microgram standard. “It’s not a hard stop where we can say ‘below that, air is safe.’ That would not be supported by the scientific evidence,” Dr. Samet said. “It would be very nice for public health if things worked that way, but they don’t seem to.”

“Debunking a myth is tricky,” said Dr. Sean T. O’Leary, a spokesman for the American Academy of Pediatrics and an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. When you repeat the myth, he said, “you risk reinforcing it. All that parents remember about your complicated explanation about why vaccines don’t cause autism is that they’re somehow linked. So pediatricians should focus on the diseases we’re trying to prevent and if you have to address a myth, be clear that’s exactly what it is.”

According to Dr. Robert P. Dellavalle, professor of dermatology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, “Acne is one of the most debilitating diseases in dermatology. It’s not a killer, but it can scar people literally and psychologically. If treatment can cure acne and prevent scarring, it may prevent the need for psychological services, which can be hard to come by.”

In seizing on rugby as a model, Atavus was choosing to highlight a sport in which tackling above the shoulder is not permitted; some players wear “scrum caps’’ but none wear the hard plastic helmets used in football; and the rate of concussions is lower than in football, according to Dawn Comstock, a sports injury epidemiologist at the Colorado School of Public Health.

But a year later, researchers at the Colorado School of Public Health concluded that the air quality around oil and gas wells puts people nearby at an increased risk of developing cancer. But the oil and gas rally brought out plenty of workers who called Colorado’s fracking industry the safest in the nation.

“Getting shocks at the end of life is not really helping patients live longer or better,” said Dr. Larry Allen, a heart failure specialist at the University of Colorado and an author of the study.