Concerns Over Health Problems From Gulf Oil Spill

Posted in BP British Petroleum,Environment,Gulf Coast,Louisiana Maritime News on April 8, 2011

NEW ORLEANS, LA – Nearly one year after the disastrous Gulf Oil Spill of 2010 possible health effects from the crude oil and chemical dispersants remain in question.

Dr. Wilma Subra Louisiana chemist and microbiologist and principle speaker at the "Truth Out for the Gulf Forum" in New Orleans in February, 2011.

A health forum was conducted in February, 2011 in New Orleans, Louisiana where a panel of speakers discuss how the BP oil spill disaster is affecting people’s health and daily life. Health issues may have arisen as a result of exposure to oil and chemicals from oil spill.

The forum was entitled “Truth Out for the Gulf Forum” and the principle speaker was American environmental scientist, Dr. Wilma Subra.

Subra, a Luoisiana chemist and microbiologist, is working with people who are sick and say they were exposed to the crude oil and chemical dispersants.

In a YouTube video Regarding the BP Oil Spill and its aftermath, Subra states that blood tests taken from people who have become sick reveal exposure to crude oil and chemical dispersants:

“We’re not finding it in people that eat the seafood but we are finding it in people that fool with the seafood, particularly when they go out and trawl or catch and they bring up really oily samples.”

WATCH VIDEO

The Huffington Post also reports:

The potential effect of exposure to the oil and dispersants remains a point of controversy, and is clearly in dispute. However, there have been a number of videos  (many of which cannot be confirmed as to whether or not they’re accurate accounts), detailing the alleged health effects of exposure to the spill … Health concerns have been an issue since even the beginning of the spill, according to TIME. The impact of the disaster requires long-term observation however.

In the New Orleans Health Forum, Dr. Subra’s presentation covered topics such as “Human Health Impacts Associated with the Dispersants Corexit 9500 & 9527” in which no less than 27 symptoms were listed, among them, headaches, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pains, dixzziness were being reported.

The blood tests were conducted on oil spill cleanup workers and people who live in coastal communities from New Liberia, Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle.

Dr Subra said that results were compared with the normal backround. Subra said, “We have some that are at 10 times over the normal backround for like, benzene, ethyl benzene and hexane which correlate back to the BP crude and also correlate to air samples that have been performed in areas where the crude has been present. So the cause and effect is there. It makes the link.”