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Warning of Looming Crisis, Louisiana Calls on BP to Fund Mental Health Programs
As Louisiana officials warn of a possible mental health crisis in communities affected by the oil spill, BP has yet to respond to a month-old request from the Louisiana health department to fund emergency mental health programs. The impasse has prompted Louisiana to make an argument with significant implications for disputes over BP's liability: that BP is responsible for mental health problems believed to be caused by the spill.
On Monday, in a letter to BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles, Louisiana Health and Hospitals Secretary Alan Levine pressed his case for $10 million in funding for mental health services. "Our teams of counselors imbedded (sic) in the impacted communities are now warning us of an emerging behavioral health crisis," Levine wrote. He stated that the teams were finding "palpable increases in anxiety, depression, stress, grief, excessive drinking, earlier drinking and suicide ideation."
Levine wrote that these behaviors are "early warning signs of developing substance abuse and dependence, mental illness, suicide and familial breakdown including divorce, spouse abuse, and child abuse and neglect," and advised that the coming months will prove critical in addressing the growing mental health issues in affected populations.
The primary initiative that Louisiana is calling on BP to fund is the Louisiana Spirit program, which began after Hurricane Katrina and has been restarted to provide crisis counseling and mental health outreach in communities affected by the spill. Although the program has already received $1 million from a $25 million block grant initially allocated by BP to Louisiana for spill response, health department spokeswoman Lisa Faust said this money is enough to last only into August.
Faust said that the department's funding request would sustain the program for the next seven months, double the number of crisis counselors, and pay for medication for 2,000 people.
We at ProPublica have reached out to BP to ask for its reaction to Louisiana's request, but have not yet received a response.
The Louisiana health department said it is interpreting BP's lack of response as a denial of its first request in May, and that it will continue to press the company to pay for needed mental health services. Faust cited daytime drinking among unemployed fishermen as an example of the causal relationship between the spill and the problems being seen.
"We believe this is a direct impact of this spill, and BP has promised to make communities whole," she said.
While the health department is making its case to the public, the courts tend to take a narrower view of liability, said David Owen, a law professor at the University of South Carolina. He said Louisiana would face an uphill battle should it file suit to compel payment by BP.
"In general, the law has been reluctant to find liability for mental suffering without accompanying physical suffering," said Owen, an expert in tort law. People who suffered no physical injury – either from the spill itself or from stress-related ailments such as heart attacks or miscarriages – are usually not entitled to damages in a system that is designed to prevent businesses from being bankrupted by a flood of diffuse claims.
Owen said Louisiana would have to prove that the harm being suffered was a foreseeable consequence of BP's negligence in allowing the spill to occur. Both of Louisiana's letters to the company have cited previous reports – one about the mental health effects of the Exxon Valdez spill and another about the effects of Hurricane Katrina on children – that illustrated the predictable nature of mental health problems after environmental disasters.
Shortly after the spill, Louisiana announced its intention of suing BP, but it has not yet announced what types of damages it will seek. On Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Louisiana attorney general has hired Brad Marten, a plaintiff's attorney who represented Alaska in the Exxon Valdez oil-spill litigation.
Faust, the health department spokeswoman, said she was not aware of any discussion of filing suit against BP to compel payment of the mental health request.
"We're very hopeful that BP will fund this," she said.
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23 Comments so far
Show AllQ: How will funding these mental health services profit BP?
A: They won't
BP: (middle finger proudly extended at you America) You ain't gettin' squat.
It will benefit them greatly if they diversify into their rapist and pillager counter-part: Big Pharma.
Yes---let's roll out those anti-depresssants.
That ought to fix things....................
Big Fucking Pharma will profit--drugging up the Gulf citizens.
Don't worry, David Owen, physical suffering will very shortly follow the mental suffering when people affected by the Gulf's disaster and disaster non-response begin to harm themselves and others. Begin keeping track of the poor souls and their dismal futures, then sue, baby, sue!
The goofy little governor should be the first recipient.
MH services? this is a joke right? you know what's better than grief counseling after job-loss? how about a new job?
BP has destroyed, inter alia, thousands & thousands of lives. these victims need counseling? gimme a break.
And I dare say BP should fund an English learning program too, that might prevent any more "imbedded" and "ideation" monstrosities coming out of the Louisiana health department.
I'm sure everything that that now goes wrong in the south is totally BP's fault and they must be made to pay for it all, for ever and ever.
Perhaps the brass of the Oil Corporations and others monsters of Domestic Terrorism should be Required to see Mental Health Workers! Their actions, excuses and lack of responsibility , Greed and their loop holes for tax evasion..hey why not add a sub-conscious death wish for this world...Why are they still "allowed" to continue their insanity? Do they not propose a threat to society- Persons- Places and Things? Take the irresponsible, do nothing, Obstructionist republicans, Too.
There is obviously a flaw in the human sperm to produce these
monsters!
BRILLIANT !!!
B-B-Baby, you ain’t seen nothing yet
Crude oil is packed with a toxic chemical called benzene. Even in small amounts, benzene is associated with leukemia, Hodgkin`s Lymphoma and other serious blood and immune system diseases. The EPA`s "safe level" for benzene is 4 ppb (parts per billion) and benzene is being found in Gulf air at levels of 3,000 ppb. Crude oil is being smelled hundreds of miles away. If you can smell oil, you`re breathing highly toxic benzene.
With the oil, numerous other toxic gases including hydrogen sulfide and methylene chloride are also gushing from earth.. The levels recorded pose serious, even fatal, risks to adults and unborn children.
Most people know that the chemical dispersant BP is using is highly toxic. It`s so toxic that the EPA ordered BP to use a different and less toxic dispersant - an order which BP ignored. Currently, over a million gallons of these toxic chemicals have been dumped into our oceans. The same dispersant was used with the Exxon Valdez oil spill. It caused serious respiratory, liver, nervous system, kidney and blood damage in people.
But wait, there is more : During hurricane season water is ‘sucked’ up into the atmosphere not only by oceanic evaporation but also by physical dispersement. So, it should`t be a surprise that scientists are predicting severe destruction across the U.S. from toxic rains - and it appears the first cases are being reported about 400 miles from the Gulf.
Plants have small, raindrop-sized burn marks on them. It is likely that crops may fail and if they do survive, it`s likely they`ll be toxic to consume because plants being watered with toxic chemicals will absorb those chemicals into their cells.
Have I been pushing a plan since day 3? Yes. Anyone give a f**k? Of course not.
We The People - AKA, government - need to get our fellow Gulf Americans PAID and then move them out ASAP.
It is the only answer. Say goodbye to your 'homeland,' and get to starting over before it's too late.
Sad, yes, but the truth is undeniable: the Gulf of Mexico is a Toxic Waste Zone and will be dead for generations.
Essential personnel only, with free treatment/counseling.
The rest - out. Now.
Will this include counseling for sea turtles, pelicans, dolphins, whales?
"substance abuse and dependence, mental illness, suicide and familial breakdown including divorce, spouse abuse, and child abuse and neglect"
These things, of course, are not what they are really worried about. What they really really ARE concerned about is armed hostile open revolt of the people against this JOKE of a government that we have going on here.
I'm sure their "Emergency Mental Health Programs" are really being funded to squash this alone, and nothing else.
Home run. The shills running the government will do anything to stop the revolution accept reform.
Won't be long now before they announce a new "social program" which may or may not be called "re-education camps." Of course, as opposed to those set up in the past in the Communist blocks which were free of charge, the subjects in the Capitalist block will be charged stiff "re-education" fees which will have to paid for via high interest loans, federal grants, etc. If all else fails, they'll take their kidneys, livers, etc. in lieu of money.
Indeed.
'the search for the best potato chip'............
come on guys, there's more important things to occupy ourselves with; as proposed on yahoo...........
whilst the oceans are being slowly and devastatingly destroyed, bright sparks are coming up with new ideas with which to amuse ourselves............
how can we be concerned with mundane things like mental health when a portion of our 'raison d'etre' depends on a delicacy like the potato chip, which will enhance our diet??
(especially if the chips are fried in bp oil)
"Levine wrote that these behaviors are 'early warning signs of developing substance abuse and dependence, mental illness, suicide and familial breakdown including divorce, spouse abuse, and child abuse and neglect,' and advised that the coming months will prove critical in addressing the growing mental health issues in affected populations."
This makes we wonder about us who are experiencing many of the same symptoms but due to the current economic situation. Maybe we should request the big banks, insurance corporations and others cover costs for our mental health treatment and the ensuing physical problems associated with the issues surrounding the economic meltdown. it's a huge affected population, yes?
"While the health department is making its case to the public, the courts tend to take a narrower view of liability"
Problem #1 is in relying on corporations and problem #2 is in relying on courts. When the people get a clue they will rely only on their torches and pitchforks, after which we will witness a corresponding change in the status quo.
I was just so relieved though, despite all the oil leaking
,I mean gushing, into the Gulf (and a whole lot more than
what they are claiming because I saw Jun30 Skandi ROVII
camera messup for that split second between 1730 and 1740,
and the May 28&29 live feed video) our congress and president
with all this going on and massive unemployment, the state
of union in about the worse shape of my sixty some year old
lifetime, as busy as this might make them, even though
there was to much to do so nothing could get done, they were
still able to
pass a stiff sanctions law on Iran, and our pres still found
the time to make a long press conference to tell us about
this new santions law, and thank god he took the time to
thank Nancy Pelosi for all her hard work to get this sanctions law passed, and Hoyer too, so in spite of all the
difficult tasks in front of them they know what the priorities are and i am so glad of this because as dumb as i
am , I really believed that the oil crisis in the Gulf was
much more important that starting another war but dummy
dummy me and for some reason or other I believed reshaping
our economy to an economy that wasn't dependent on war might
have been more important than a sactions bill on a nation
that has never aggressed against another nation but there I
go again trying think for my much smarter than me lawmakers
inside the beltway.
Oh, bruther! When in doubt, put them in the looney bin and pump them up with drugs. It may not take care of the real problem but it will make the sheeple happy and make Big Pharma and its tentacles very, very rich.
I hope all the "depressed" citizens of the Gulf in need of "mental health" counseling don't internalize their pain or fall for psuedo government *help*-- I hope they stand up to these pricks in charge/corporations and make heads roll.
REVOLT!!!!!!
The government should pay for people to relocate from the toxic waste dump they're living in--after all they allowed BP to drill. Counseling alone just won't cut it--not by a longshot.