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A Developing Health Crisis Across the Gulf Coast
NEW ORLEANS - Days after the BP oil disaster began, on Apr. 20, 2010, BP and the U.S. administration pledged that Gulf Coast communities would be made whole. One year later that promise remains unfulfilled: across the Gulf there is a developing health crisis as a result of the oil spill.
Our state and federal governments, and BP itself, must demonstrate the will to take actions promised a year ago.
The BP spill poured over 170 million gallons of crude oil and immeasurable amounts of toxic gases into the waters and atmosphere of the Gulf of Mexico, in addition to the two million gallons of chemical dispersants used in the response operations, the full impact of which is yet unknown. For coastal communities exposed to these poisons, and that continue to find oil in their marshes and fishing nets, the health impact, we can be sure, will be severe and long term.
Oil and chemical exposure is widespread among residents across the U.S. Coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Fishermen were exposed during the cleanup; families have been exposed along the beaches, bayous, and canals; entire communities along the shores and marshes continue to be exposed.
Oil exposure causes health consequences that range from chronic issues, such as acute headaches, dizziness, skin rashes, irritation of the eyes and throat, and vomiting, to more severe conditions, including reproductive problems, respiratory and nervous system failure, liver and kidney disorders, blood disorders, and several types of cancer. We know that the life-threatening volatile chemicals (VOCs) found in BP's oil are carcinogens.
While the federal government has taken some important steps, such as reaching out to local residents through the Ecosystem Restoration Task Force and establishing the Gulf Coast Claims Facility, directed at compensating economic loss, coastal communities are still bearing the brunt of the costs of the disaster.
The Centers for Disease Control has developed a surveillance system to track the health of cleanup workers, but has no similar programme for the rest of the affected population. We have yet to see a systematic response by local, state, and federal governments, and BP, to treat those in our communities who are coming down with these symptoms.
Our doctors have not had the support needed to appropriately document and track these symptoms. Instead, our neighbours are told to take pain-relievers, and some say they have been discouraged by health professionals from attributing their conditions to the oil disaster. All the while, we continue to hear of cleanup workers and coastal residents suffering from a pattern of symptoms that includes skin rashes, vomiting, and respiratory problems.
Communities and organisations across the Gulf are pushing for greater leadership in responding to the developing health crisis. To date, there is no agency - state or federal - that is taking the lead in coordinating a regional initiative to screen, treat, care for, and support disaster victims.
Coastal communities - which are rural - are in need of immediate treatment that is adequate, affordable, and accessible. Such treatment is currently available in only very limited areas, such as in certain neighbourhoods of New Orleans. Funds are desperately needed to ensure the continuation, and expansion, of such care, especially for the uninsured.
There are also low-cost, community-based healthcare models that are being sparsely implemented at the local level, but for such initiatives to respond effectively to the magnitude of the BP disaster requires the political will of states and the federal government. BP can and should pay the bill, and the U.S. Congress should take the lead to ensure that sufficient Clean Water Act fine revenues go directly to affected Gulf Coast communities.
A disaster of such proportions also will certainly have an enormous impact on mental health among Gulf residents, including high levels of depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and chronic anxiety. Making these communities whole requires both immediate treatment and a sustained medical intervention.
Volunteers, Gulf advocates, and healthcare professionals have tirelessly worked to document the impact themselves. Doctors and toxicologists testing the blood of disaster victims in coastal communities report alarmingly high levels of VOCs.
Dr. Wilma Subra, a MacArthur Fellow and chemist, reports finding amounts of VOCs at five to ten times in excess of the national average. One survey of 954 Louisiana residents found nearly half of the respondents reported an unusually sudden and severe increase in coughing, skin and eye irritation, and headaches following the BP spill. The dramatic appearance of such symptoms is consistent with chemical exposure.
Partnerships of community and national groups are developing programmes to bring low-cost and immediate treatment to those who need it most. An initiative by the Jefferson healthcare clinic, the Alliance Institute, and the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights is one such effort - but making coastal communities whole requires intervention on a much larger scale.
Countries around the world recognise a right to adequate healthcare for all; when a corporation violates that right and does so in an egregious manner, it is our obligation to ensure that the full harm is remedied.
Our government and BP must carry through on their promise that coastal communities will be fully compensated for what has been imposed on them, and this must include provision of adequate, affordable, and accessible healthcare.
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18 Comments so far
Show AllShit, another revolt, another boss
Heck of a job Barack!!!
Hmmm. Maybe the photo of Obumer in gulf water with his kid, while reporters were locked in a hotel room for 4 hours, really wasn't taken during his gulf photo op. Naw; only a completely evil and callous person would do something like that.
Sadly, this is another catastrophe that will play out as a war of attrition, with ordinary unprivileged citizens as victims.
Regardless of which party is in power, the government will only pay lip service to "doing the right thing" where it counts: conducting rigorous scientific and legal investigations, and providing social services to ensure that victims are both adequately treated for health problems, and provided relief for "collateral damage" arising from BP's heinous depredations.
Even the government agencies will ruthlessly use the clock to their advantage, providing minimal assistance at minimal expense until the victim population shrinks one way or the other.
Of course, the corporations will do the same. Rest assured that they will dispute, disclaim, deny, and obstruct any claim or accusation that they are responsible or culpable for massively poisoning the environment and population.
Only the legal profession will thrive as the responsible corporate parties run out the clock and class-action lawsuits are subject to the tender mercies of the Amerikan legal system.
As long as scientists and medical experts aren't allowed to pinpoint the causes of people's ill health, BP has plausible deniability. Like blaming their illnesses on a sunburn. Remember that?
And that's all Obama cares about.
FREEPRESS: That's it in a nut-shell. I fear a similar response to cumulative radiation levels emanating from the catastrophe in Japan over to our "shining shores."
As I've said before, the corporate climate of trespass is so thick that it's become a virtual legal jijitsu to establish a chain of probable cause that can be tied to any singular offender. Therefore those intent upon poisoning our air, water, soil and food... are effectively creating a level playing field that not only reflects a particularly heinous version of "free" enterprise, it's also managed to become nearly "accountability" free, too.
More money for corporations, politicians (CYA money), lawyers and Kenneth R. Feinberg.
Poverty, sickness and death for the rest.
Move along......
Don't worry, be happy!
What a pathetic, corrupt system we under which we exist ----- designed and executed by psychopaths. When will it end? Will justice ever prevail? I own a few pitchforks and I am quite willing to loan out all but the one with the strongest handle, which I reserve for my own use. dh
This will likely play out similar to the exxon valdez 10, 20 ,30...100 years
with no real accountability or punishment
"Our state and federal governments, and BP itself, must demonstrate the will to take actions promised a year ago."
Meanwhile, yesterday the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration opened up the remaining Gulf of Mexico Federal waters for fishing yesterday. I guess the dead Dolphins and turtles were ignored by the NOAA.
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2011/20110419_gulfreopening.html
If I were there, especially if I had kids still with me, I would
get the heck out. The air and water are polluted and no healthcare
is going to change that. And for the rest of us, if you have a place
you love and your family wants to stay there, FIGHT to protect it from
polluters, before it is too late.
Sadly, we are in a time when the ruling class can and will ignore any grief or pain borne by the population. The ruling elite in this country will ignore anything that doesn’t fit its chosen narrative line as long as it possibly can. With our bought and blindfolded press, that ignoring can go on astonishingly-- horrifyingly-- long.
Even were half the population of the Gulf states to be poisoned and sick, I don’t have any confidence that people’s health would be treated, or there would be serious changes in policy. I think it would take little short of a march on Washington & an encampment by sick and hurting Gulf Coasters and their physicians to force a serious effort to address their plight.
The World Corporatocracy's plan is in Endgame phase. The extinction of life in/on Gulf coast is merely one of the game pieces being played. WeThePeople of Earth are the leaders we have been waiting for. Discover the true power of our Self(ves) and focus on community. The World Order rules through a simple technique, Divide and Conquer. Mr. Bradberry's community work through Alliance Institute is key to thwarting their efforts by surviving and growing, but, I personally don't think that expecting the Corporatocracy of America to give a lick damn and respond to the Gulf Coast War Syndrome accordingly is anything they are interested in. Blessings to All!
Sadly some fishermen, crabbers, shrimpers and oyster snaggers are still bringing in catches and they say the seafood is clean and people there in the gulf region are eating that seafood. The gulf commercial fishermen cannot get their regular long time hotel customers and sea food stores in most other states to buy their catches.
The people living along the gulf should not eat and of that poison, Corexit is poison and it has polluted the food chain from the plankton, deep sea worms and sea cucumbers on up the chain. Many of the workers who were hired by BP to clean up oil are now having all types of strange medical problems, which is not at all surprising.
Only rational response to any environmental corporate disaster.
Evacuate the affected area as if was the oncoming hell, immediately.
Don't wait for the quick and the slow poisons.
Don't offer to clean up corporate messes.
Learn the lessons well.
Leave the war zone.
Attack the CEOs.
Look at the similarities with Katrina and Fukushima.....the governmental authorities, in league with the corporatocracy to blame for the disasters, all go into denial mode, putting off correct response until it is too late, then the citizens suffer and die, and on top of everything, pick up the tab for the disaster!!!
in a competitive world wide situation of increasing scarcity and unsustainability. the winners will consolidate and protect their winnings, and the losers will be left to die.
as at the end of conrad's "heart of darkness", "the horror! the horror!