BP Oil DIsaster– Results from a Health & Economic Impact SurveyLa. poll shows widespread health effects in spill’s wake (03/04/2011)
Elana Schor, E&E reporter
Nearly half of surveyed residents in Louisiana’s coastal parishes
experienced adverse health effects that could be linked to chemical
exposure in the months after the Gulf of Mexico oil gusher last year,
according to a poll released yesterday by a green group in partnership
with Tulane University’s disaster leadership academy.
The health impact poll, billed as “the largest known face-to-face
survey of communities impacted by the oil spill” by its authors at the
Louisiana Bucket Brigade (LABB), also found that locals’ health
complaints sometimes went untreated, even among those with health care
coverage. While 54 percent of respondents held health insurance, 15
percent sought medical care for more direct exposures and 31 percent
did so for symptoms.
The share of respondents using over-the-counter medication “more often
than usual” to deal with health problems in the wake of the oil spill
also hit 31 percent in the LABB-Tulane poll, which was conducted with
support from the Patagonia clothing company.
LABB conducted its survey of 954 residents in the Louisiana coastal
parishes of Plaquemines, Jefferson, Terrebonne and St. Bernard during
the day, a limitation it noted would “likely exclude” many of the
fishermen and other coastal locals hired by BP PLC and federal
responders to help clean up the spilled oil.
Nonetheless, the group — which often faces off against the oil
industry, particularly on the issue of air emissions from local
refineries — expressed hope last year that its project could help
inform a sweeping National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
(NIEHS) study of the Gulf Coast health impact from the 86-day leak
(Greenwire, Aug. 19, 2010).
NIEHS’s prospective study, carrying a $10 million-plus budget and
expected to survey upward of 55,000 oil spill cleanup workers, was
officially kick-started this week (Greenwire, March 1).
“More data should be gathered, but most important is action,” LABB
wrote in its report on the survey results. “Absence of data should not
be used as an excuse for inaction.”
The green group’s recommendations, which it described as coming largely
from interviews with affected coastal residents, included an increase
in access to health care providers trained in treating the consequences
of exposure to oil and dispersants, a focus on treatment in addition to
study of symptoms, and training of locals in seafood sampling and other
long-term spill recovery work.
Whether that call for more attention to medical treatment will pay
dividends remains unclear. Both the Obama administration and BP
reported during the spill that their sampling of air and water along
the Gulf Coast yielded little cause for concern about lingering
environmental health consequences in the area. Monitoring of chemical
exposure among cleanup workers, however, raised alarms among
environmentalists and some veteran industrial hygienists (Greenwire,
June 11, 2010).
Survey