UPDATE….Breast Cancer Cluster Confirmed in Barnett Shale/Flower Mound…here is the WFAA report.
Earlier, Emagazine covered the story and two commenters shared that they have breast cancer
Both commentors have or had breast cancer, both are from Arlington TX too.
One of the women lives downwind from the compressor station over a mile away.
To her east is a drill site that is less than a half a mile from her…
Due to urban drilling that has riddled our town with ugly eye sores, I was more interested in the intrinsic damage that could be happening health wise. The State Department of Health responded to my two year long request for cancer cluster information.
Recently I inquired about pancreatic cancer rates in zip code 76017 because I was told by my dentist’s dental assistant that there was six cases in the Calender and Park Springs area. I don’t know why the state has such a high “statistically significant” range that you must fall in to be a cancer cluster suspect, but they said all was fine for this zip code for pancreatic cancer. For the men, the expected cases (17.4 men), verses the observed cases (17 men) fell within almost “half a person” when they looked at data from 2000-2009. But the women didn’t fare so well. Of the 14.2 expected cases, they actually observed a whopping 23 cases.
It has been reported that the highest breast cancer rates in Texas correlate to the most active areas in the Barnett Shale. The highest natural gas production counties are in Tarrant, Denton, Wise, Parker, Hood, and Johnson Counties.
In a 250 person, nation wide, breast cancer study, out-of-pocket expenses averaged $712 a month. The majority of women studied were covered by Medicare of which a quarter of those did not fill a prescription, and 20 percent took less than the prescribed dose.
I now feel that having cancer insurance in addition to my regular health insurance policy is a good idea since we are sitting on the sweet spot. I guess it may be true that you cannot have your cake and eat it too……if you’re a woman.
Arlington TX Barnett Shale Blogger 
Has anyone speculated as to “WHY” women have more pancreatic cancer in this area? Is it linked to the higher levels of estrogen? — I was told an area in Eastern Colorado (Limon and Hugo) seems to have a lot of cancer and there were specialist, cancer health insurance agents out there some years back selling us ‘cancer policies’. I did not notice a large amount of wells except those on the Big Sandy River area. I scanned some documents and found open pits and permits to spread frack waste on the farm/ranch lands. I don’t know. I knew the town water was yucky, but I always figured the cancers were from the estrogen hormones they fed their cattle?
American Cancer Society says..?Men are slightly more likely to develop pancreatic cancer than women. This may be due, at least in part, to increased tobacco use in men. The difference in pancreatic cancer risk was more pronounced in the past (when tobacco use was much more common among men than women), but the gap has closed in recent years.”