Why should cancer patients in the United States and Canada—and those who love or diagnose them—care about a report about looming water shortages in distant countries such as South Africa and Argentina?



The report is "Fracking: The New Global Water Crisis." Written by Food and Water Watch, it documents the many ways in which the technology called hydraulic fracturing threatens the world's vital water resources. That's because fracking—when combined with horizontal drilling—uses prodigious amounts of water as a high-pressure hose to blow apart bedrock. The goal is to liberate the wisps of oil or bubbles of gas trapped inside....