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BP oil spill's health effects will be felt for generations, scientist warns
Published: Saturday, February 05, 2011, 10:48 PM Updated: Saturday, February 05, 2011, 10:55 PM
By Bill Barrow, The Times-Picayune
Months after diving in Gulf waters fouled by BP crude oil and the oil dispersant Corexit, a man in his 40s has more than five times the normal amount of ethylbenzene in his blood.
The bloodstream of a 3-year-old, exposed to the oil spill when his family visited the Gulf Coast, contains at least three times the normal level of the same organic hydrocarbon, which is toxic in certain quantities.
Such numbers, according to Wilma Subra, a New Iberia biochemist and environmental activist, are increasingly common in a region that continues to grapple with the consequences of the largest oil spill in U.S. history.
And, Subra said Saturday at a forum in New Orleans, they are just one indication that the human health effects of the spill are greater -- and will linger far longer -- than either the oil industry or the U.S. government has acknowledged.
"The effects will be felt for generations," she said, ticking off a wide range of symptoms she said result from exposure to crude oil and Corexit. "This is what we have to look forward to."
Read more:
http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2011/02/bp_oil_spills_health_effects_w.html
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New Study Warns on Effects of BP Oil Spill
FoxNewsChannel Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAyDdAlZuHI
Published: Saturday, February 05, 2011, 10:48 PM Updated: Saturday, February 05, 2011, 10:55 PM
By Bill Barrow, The Times-Picayune
Months after diving in Gulf waters fouled by BP crude oil and the oil dispersant Corexit, a man in his 40s has more than five times the normal amount of ethylbenzene in his blood.
The bloodstream of a 3-year-old, exposed to the oil spill when his family visited the Gulf Coast, contains at least three times the normal level of the same organic hydrocarbon, which is toxic in certain quantities.
Such numbers, according to Wilma Subra, a New Iberia biochemist and environmental activist, are increasingly common in a region that continues to grapple with the consequences of the largest oil spill in U.S. history.
And, Subra said Saturday at a forum in New Orleans, they are just one indication that the human health effects of the spill are greater -- and will linger far longer -- than either the oil industry or the U.S. government has acknowledged.
"The effects will be felt for generations," she said, ticking off a wide range of symptoms she said result from exposure to crude oil and Corexit. "This is what we have to look forward to."
Read more:
http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2011/02/bp_oil_spills_health_effects_w.html
------------------------------------------------------
New Study Warns on Effects of BP Oil Spill
FoxNewsChannel Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAyDdAlZuHI