Vaca Muerta residents report cancers, stillbirths near fracking wells

Researchers say no in-depth studies track Vaca Muerta health effects

In Allen, a small town in Argentine Patagonia, families living on Calle Ciega 10, a dead-end dirt road in the countryside where about 20 households — most of them seasonal workers on fruit farms — make their homes, say severe migraines, nausea and skin irritation, as well as cancers, congenital abnormalities, miscarriages and stillbirths among foetuses and children, began 13 years ago when a gas and oil well was drilled beside the street. The Guardian, reporting from Allen, Neuquén and Añelo, documented the symptoms and the residents’ account. The houses along the street are small and dilapidated, and children play and ride bikes just a few metres from the well while workers and a crane operate nearby.

Vaca Muerta spans more than 11,500 square miles across four Argentine provinces and now hosts more than 2,600 active wells, including one on Calle Ciega 10. The formation holds the world’s second-largest reserve of shale gas and the fourth-largest reserve of shale oil. By the end of 2025, crude oil had overtaken soya bean meal as Argentina’s leading export for the first time — an all-time production record — driven in part by European companies that invested in the region to find an alternative to Russian gas. Fracking, a technique that injects water, sand and chemicals at high pressure to fracture rock and release trapped hydrocarbons, has been used in the region since 2012 under the government of Cristina Kirchner. Now, under Javier Milei, the Argentine government is heavily reliant on Vaca Muerta’s gas and oil resources to help the country recover from years of economic crisis and has opened the door to foreign companies to extract and export hydrocarbons.

Roxana Valverde, who has lived on Calle Ciega 10 for nearly 30 years, told The Guardian: “There have been cases of cancer, and several women had to move away because they could not carry their pregnancies to term. They kept losing their babies. Some were born with illnesses, or died shortly after birth.” Valverde said that before the well was drilled, the illnesses were uncommon or absent. “Before the well, we didn’t experience these illnesses, or if we did, they were much less common,” she said. She added that doctors she has seen suggest the symptoms could be caused by pollution from fracking, while acknowledging that, without in-depth studies, “it is hard to establish with 100% certainty.”

One family on the street, that of Analía Celeste Saldías, has reported multiple health events. Her son Joel, now five, was born in 2020 with three lungs and had surgery as a baby to correct a severe congenital malformation. In 2019, her eldest daughter, Michelle, developed serious skin problems with painful patches on her back, arms and torso. In 2023, while pregnant with her youngest daughter Bianca, Saldías said she faced complications including what she described as the beginning of a stroke. The well on the street ceased operations in 2019 but resumed work in May, residents said, and they have repeatedly tried to file complaints that have not been heard in court. They suspect incidents at the well may have contaminated a pond from which they draw water for daily needs.

Beyond Calle Ciega 10, The Guardian reports the Mapuche — Argentina’s largest Indigenous group — are frequently among those most affected in the region due to the widespread construction of wells on their ancestral lands. Lef and Jorge Nawel, members of the Zonal Xawvn Ko Mapuche confederation, which represents 14 Indigenous communities across Vaca Muerta, said the community has seen numerous cases of miscarriage and nervous and respiratory system disorders, particularly among children. In Añelo, the operational core of Vaca Muerta, Lorena Bravo Maripe, the ancestral leader of the Añelo Lof Campo Maripe Mapuche community of 106 members, reported several cancer cases — including her mother’s breast cancer and her own cervical cancer — as well as numerous respiratory and skin ailments. “This is a polluting industry and, instead of monitoring it, the state is completely absent,” she said, adding that the community raises livestock and has noticed that animals are often born disfigured or experience complications during birth.

Añelo is surrounded by hundreds of active wells, yet hydrocarbon extraction is not the only threat to the health of people living in Vaca Muerta. The region also hosts numerous open-air toxic waste dumps, and hundreds of lorries pass through daily. According to a report from the NGO OpSur, 33% of the unconventional gas and 39% of the unconventional oil extracted in Vaca Muerta are controlled by the state-owned energy company YPF, while the rest is handled by foreign companies, including the US firm Chevron, France’s TotalEnergies and the UK’s Shell. Fracking has been linked by numerous scientific studies, The Guardian notes, to ecological harm and to health issues for nearby residents, including respiratory and skin conditions, cancer, congenital disabilities, miscarriages and pregnancy complications.

The region’s most significant environmental prosecution centres on a separate hazard: the Comarsa case. Prosecutor Maximiliano Breide Obeid, who heads the environmental offences and special laws unit in Neuquén, accuses the waste-management company Comarsa of storing rather than properly handling and disposing of more than 300,000 cubic metres of toxic waste at a dump in Neuquén, a city of more than 300,000 inhabitants. The case was initiated after complaints from local people, environmental groups and civic organisations. “We have established that the nearest homes are just 200 metres from the toxic waste,” Breide Obeid said. “We believe there is an immediate danger to people’s health, and that there will be a future danger if the situation is not resolved.”

A report by the forensic medical corps cited in the case says the waste contains barium, cadmium, lead, copper, mercury and arsenic — heavy metals that can be toxic to humans — and that contact with the material can lead to severe health issues such as respiratory, skin, neurological, stomach and kidney problems, as well as cancer and miscarriages. The prosecution alleges the company stored the waste on the surface and underground without properly sealing the soil, in violation of safety regulations and risking contamination of water and soil. The air around the dump emits a very strong odour, making it unbearable to breathe, and within minutes, people’s eyes start to water. Yet new plots for residential building are being developed around the dump, just a few dozen metres away. Comarsa was approached for comment.

Doctors and researchers say the health picture in Vaca Muerta is not being properly measured. Silvia Ávila, dean of the faculty of medicine at the National University of Comahue, said the government must monitor citizens’ health, ensure transparency and publish results. “The entire population, including healthcare workers, should be informed about the public policies and monitoring carried out by the state and companies regarding people’s health — but we are not,” Ávila said. Alan Rocha Varsanyi, a researcher at OpSur, said: “We lack medical and scientific research. It is highly possible that we are already paying the health costs of this today, but we lack the tools to determine whether or to what extent this is the case.”

Health ministers in Neuquén and Río Negro declined to comment when approached by The Guardian. YPF, Chevron, TotalEnergies and Shell were also approached for comment.

The article was developed with the support of Journalismfund Europe.