Voices From the Gulf: “Do Not Eat Our Food” (pt. 4)

Voices of Science

Harriet Perry, a research biologist with the University of Southern Mississippi’s Gulf Coast Research Laboratory and Bob Thomas, a biologist at Loyola University in New Orleans have independently discovered that the crab larvae has been infected with both oil and the toxic dispersant, Corexit. These independent discoveries are an ominous sign that the Gulf’s vast food web has been seriously impacted thus imperiling food safety “for years to come.” Thomas further stated that oil and dispersant toxicity has reached the level of where it is “moving up the food chain as opposed to just hanging out in the water.” Thomas further concluded that “something likely will eat those oiled larvae … and then that animal will be eaten by something bigger and so on.”

Scientists at The University of Southern Mississippi and Tulane University have echoed Thomas and Perry’s findings which found oil in the post-larvae of blue crabs entering coastal marshes along the Gulf Coast signaling that oil is entering estuarine food chains. Dr. Perry observed that “I have never seen anything like this.”

Scientists at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab shows oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster has made its way into the Gulf food chain as well. These particular scientists have found signs of an oil-and-dispersant mix under the shells of tiny blue crab larvae in the Gulf of Mexico which is a clear indication that the unprecedented use of dispersants in the BP oil spill has broken up the oil into toxic droplets so tiny that they have easily entered the food chain.

In the first peer-reviewed challenge to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) safe levels for cancer-causing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), a new study says they were overestimated in Gulf seafood following the BP oil spill by up to 10,000 times.

Published in the journal Environmental Health Perspective, the study by authors Miriam Rotkin-Ellman and Gina Solomon — both from the National Resources Defense Council — offers evidence that FDA is tolerating too much contamination and is failing to identify risks for pregnant women and children.

“Instead of saying it was safe for everyone to eat, pregnant women and children should have been warned and advised to reduce their Gulf shellfish consumption,” Ellman says.

And now it is likely that 100% of the shrimp in the Gulf are tainted.

Corexit Is the Main Culprit

It is mind boggling that Corexit 9500 and Corexit 9527 would be used in cleaning up the largest environmental danger in the history of the United States. According to the EPA, both forms of Corexit are the most ineffective available agents in treating oil spills and, simultaneously, both Corexit agents also pose the most toxic risk to various aquatic life forms. My fellow Republic Broadcasting Network colleague, Darren Weeks, found evidence from the EPA files that Corexit has the highest toxicity to Menindia fish of all 18 EPA tested dispersants. Just a very small amount of Corexit 9500 is required to kill 50% of fish within four days.

When compared to another EPA approved dispersant, Nokomis 3-F4, Corexit 9500 is 38 times more poisonous to Menindia fish and 17 times more deadly to shrimp. Why not just use Nokomis 3-F4? The answer is simple, Goldman Sachs does not have any financial interests in Nokomis 3-F4. NALCO, the manufacturer of Corexit, was a subsidiary of Goldman Sachs. Also, Goldman Sachs’ and Halliburton’s complicity in the oil spill figures prominently in this investigation and will be detailed in later parts of this series.

The most pronounced manifestation of these scientific accounts comes in the form of dolphins beaching themselves in several locations in the Gulf. In the Gulf, the dolphins are at the top of the food chain and what happens to these mammals will and is most assuredly happening to human beings. It is clear that the toxins have completed their trek up the food chain and the threat is just becoming realized.

The Gulf Crisis Will Never End

There is no end in sight for this ecological crisis, as new reports of an oil leak in the Gulf were reported in the national media on August 17, 2011. What was not reported were the additional 13 oil sheens spotted off the coast of Louisiana. This development has profound implications leaving scientists to wonder if the crisis will ever end. And, of course, BP quickly denied responsibility. And as of December 13, 2012, the Gulf is still leaking oil, which has profound implications for the long-term safety of the water, food and air.

The holocaust in the Gulf has grown to such proportions that the European Union Times reports that an extremely grave report was prepared for President Medvedev by Russia’s Ministry of Natural Resources in which the report warns that the BP spill will become the worst environmental catastrophe in all of human history and will bring total destruction to the Eastern half of the North American continent.

The Russian report proved prophetic. Oil and Corexit, even when combined, are a liquid base and as a result are subject to the normal hydrological cycle of evaporation and becoming a part of the rain cycle. As early as the 1970s, scientists referred to this process, when it involved pollutants, as toxic rain. And as the Russian report predicted, there are multiple reports of toxic rain, related to the Gulf disaster as far as away Memphis, TN. WREG TV in Memphis reported that local farmers are alarmed at the toxic substances (i.e., Corexit) raining down upon and destroying the local crop base. And while we are speaking about Corexit and oil based toxic rain, wouldn’t this toxic rain be present in the farms and be negatively impacting the grass that cows and other farm animals consume? Don’t cows eat grass which is being laced with this poisonous toxicity? Common Sense would seem to dictate that the beef and dairy grown in the region is tainted and these dangers are being visited upon the rest of the country?

Who Is Watching the Watchers?

It Will Never Be Over

These events make one wonder who is watching out for the welfare of the American consumer? A better question would be who, if anybody is watching the watchers? What did Barack Obama and then-EPA chief, Lisa Jackson do? Or, more importantly, what did they not do to safeguard the public from obvious contamination of our food supplies resulting in large part from the reckless disbursement of Corexit? With the entire region’s food supply at risk, along with the collective health of 40 million Americans, the straightforward answer is that they did nothing.

Conclusion

Everyone has to make their own choices regarding what they eat and what they consider safe. For myself, the data is strongly suggestive of the fact that one should not be eating any seafood from the Gulf.

Part five will clearly document that there are very sinister forces that have aligned themselves to successfully profit from this disaster. A careful review of the evidence makes it very likely that this event in the Gulf was premeditated. Who is responsible along with their goals is the subject of Part Five of what has become known as the Great Gulf Coast Holocaust.