Voices From the Gulf: “We Are Being Poisoned” (Pt. 3)

The most isolated group from which we can measure health effects in the Gulf are the cleanup workers. Oil is deadly and Corexit is deadlier; and when the two products are combined, it is a lethal cocktail as the mixture becomes up to 52 times more toxic than oil alone.

At one time, the EPA told BP to not use Corexit because it knew the deadly consequences. BP gave the EPA the big middle finger and showed the federal government who was really in charge.

Kim Anderson’s Oregon State University (OSU) team of researchers, from the OSU College of Agricultural Sciences, began a test-retest comparative analysis for the carcinogenic contaminant polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and its biodegradable partner, OPAHs, which appears after the application of Corexit and subsequent exposure to ultraviolet rays. Stunningly, the OSU researchers found a 40 fold increase in these carcinogenic compounds in the comparative test-retest period.The omnipresent dangers to Gulf Coast residents is self-evident in light of this research. It is noteworthy that the OSU researchers had the first draft of their report stolen before the results could be published.

The OSU findings replicate the conclusions of Mace Barron et al. regarding the toxicity of Corexit and its use in the Exxon Valdez oil spill. The Exxon Valdez oil spill and subsequent clean-up activities provides the only case study in the history of the United States involving significant exposure to the types of toxins discussed in this article as the result of an oil spill. Findings, related to the longevity of the Exxon Valdez clean-up workers, are very disturbing as their collective lifespan statistics revealed that the average life expectancy is a mere 51 years of age and nearly all of the Exxon Valdez clean-up workers are dead.

Award winning chemist, Dr. Wilma Subra, conducted blood tests on Gulf Coast residents who were symptomatic with new illnesses and found that some of the cancer-causing agents were 65 times the expected level in the victims blood tests. Subra noted that Corexit is in the air, the water and the Gulf resident’s blood.

“There’s a whole population that’s very sick and doesn’t have access to medical care, and that’s what we’ve been trying to work on now, from the very beginning, is getting them medical care so they will get better,” says Subra. “How many people do you think we’re talking about, do we have any guess?” “Hundreds of thousands along the whole coastal area,” Subra says. “Hundreds of thousands of people?” “That are sick, yes.”

It also is likely that the BP cleanup workers are going to suffer the same fate. Listen to what Dr. Wilma Subra had to say about the health of this group.

These findings can leave little doubt that BP’s use of Corexit has seriously compromised the collective life span of Gulf Coast residents. This is a staggering implication for the collective longevity in the Gulf.

If we are talking about hundreds of thousands of sick Gulf Coast residents, what does that say for the eventual mortality rate since illnesses resulting from exposure to oil and Corexit could take decades to fully manifest? For if we are talking about a life expectancy which is only 75% of expected, what does that say about the mortality rate for people along the coast? What about children who are exposed at such a young age? What will be their life expectancy? Unfortunately, we will not conclusively know the answers to these question for about 50-60 years. Meanwhile, the “spillionaires” who perpetrated this event, have literally and figuratively gotten away with murder.

BP’s oil spill-fighting dispersant of choice is Corexit 9500. It has been banned in Europe and a total of 19 countries for good reason. Corexit 9500 is one of the most environmentally toxic chemical dispersants ever created to battle an oil spill. Add to that the millions of gallons of oil that have been burned, releasing even more toxins into the atmosphere, and you have a recipe for something much worse than acid rain.

Speaking of acid raid, this is exactly what has been discovered in North Carolina and in the Memphis area where crops were being destroyed from acid rain laced with Corexit.

Why doesn’t anyone ask why BP insisted on Corexit as the dispersant of choice? Well, Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! did ask the question of former EPA official, Hugh Kaufman.

The most damning account of the Corexit dangers posed to the Gulf comes from Hugh Kaufman, senior policy analyst at the EPA’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response as he stated on Democracy Now! that

“In light of the EPA’s data, BP’s decision to use Corexit 9500 and 9527 was based solely upon an attempt to profit on the clean-up and not carry out BP’s expressed desire to clean up the Gulf Coast environment”…these dispersants were used in massive quantities, to hide the magnitude of the spill and save BP money…Both EPA, NOAA, etc, have been sock puppets for BP in this cover-up. Now, by hiding the amount of spill, BP is saving hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars in fines…People who work near it (the dispersants) are hemorrhaging internally. EPA now is taking the position that they really don’t know how dangerous it is, even though if you read the label, it tells you how dangerous it is. And, for example, in the Exxon Valdez case, people who worked with dispersants, most of them are dead…The average death age is around fifty. It’s very dangerous…it’s an economic protector of BP, not an environmental protector of the public. I think the media now has to follow the money and tell the American people who’s getting money for poisoning millions of people in the Gulf. I did the ombudsman investigation on Ground Zero, where EPA made false statements about the safety of the air, which has been proven to be false. 

Consequently, you have the heroes, the workers there, a large percentage of them are sick right now, not even ten years later, and most of them will die early because of respiratory problems, cancer, etc., because of EPA’s false statements. And you’ve got the same thing going on in the Gulf ,EPA administrators saying the same thing that the air and the water is safe.”

This is the major contributing factor on why hundreds of thousands of Gulf Coast residents are sick and why it is likely over time, that millions will die premature and painful deaths just like the clean up crews from the Exxon-Valdez oil spill.

In a later installment of this series, I will be answering Mr. Kaufman’s question on who made money on the Gulf oil spill.

A Growing Menace

It is not just the Gulf that needs to worry. The Gulf is still leaking oil and Corexit is still being covertly sprayed, most at night and by unmanned planes and there is growing evidence that the damage may be permanent due to a hole created in the ocean floor by the initial explosion.

Disturbingly, the Corexit laced toxic rain may be a fixture in the transpiration cycle. This means that Corexit could be falling from skies in a variety of locations far away from the Gulf.

When one pours more than two million gallons of toxic chemical dispersants on top of an oil spill, it doesn’t just disappear. In this case, it moves to the atmosphere, where it will travel hundreds, if not thousands of miles from the site of the BP oil spill, in the form of toxic rain. And when the rain falls to earth on grass consumed by cows, the damage to the food chain moves beyond the fish in the ocean as dairy and beef are now contaminated. As with Fukushima, we are all affected.

The European Union Times reports in a “disturbing report prepared for President Medvedev by Russia’s Ministry of Natural Resources is warning today that the BP oil and gas leak in the Gulf of Mexico is about to become the worst environmental catastrophe in all of human history threatening the entire eastern half of the North American continent with ‘total destruction’”.

We have before us a defining moment in American history. An entire region of the country, populated by 40 million people, has been plagued by a man made environmental catastrophe for which the effects will be felt for generations to come.

And just when it seems like it cannot get any worse, there is now clear evidence that the event has impacted the entire food chain. Therefore, it is not just the residents of the Gulf that are endangered, anyone who eats seafood is also at risk. This is the topic of Part Four.