Unfinished
Business: The Unspoken Link Between Dispersants and Sick Children in
the Gulf of Mexico
Riki
Ott - Marine toxicologist and Exxon Valdez survivor
26
April, 2012
All
six of Julie Creppel's young children are sick. Vomiting. Blisters
all over their bodies, even in their throats. Boils. Severe headaches
that wake them up screaming at night. Nausea. Fevers. Diarrhea.
Stomach spasms that contort their bodies in pain. Skin lesions.
Psoriasis. Nose bleeds that gush unexpectedly. Respiratory
infections. Dizziness. Sinus infections. Hand, Foot, and Mouth
disease. Hair loss. And more.
The
Creppels live in Boothville, La., in south Plaquemines Parrish. Area
health clinics and hospitals are experiencing an influx of sick
children for treatment for a range of symptoms that began after the
BP oil disaster. The increase in numbers of sick children coincides
with the massive spraying of toxic chemical dispersants into the
water and air that began in 2010. More troubling is the fact that the
children are still having these symptoms to this day.
The
Corexit dispersants used in the Gulf are known human health hazards,
causing eye and skin irritation, respiratory problems, harm to liver,
kidney, and blood cells, injury and even death to unborn babies,
immune suppression, skin disorders, and more.
Not
surprisingly, the symptoms Julie's children suffer are epidemic
across the Gulf states that were impacted by the BP disaster -- and
the secondary disaster, the widespread use of Nalco's Corexit
dispersants. Most medical doctors in the Gulf have continuously
treated the sick with standard drugs used for infections and viruses.
Nasonex. Citirizine. DryMax. Azithromycin. Zofran. Cefdinir. Xopenex.
Amoxicilin. Flovent. Suprax. Viravan-P. Albuterol. Cefixime. Ichitha
ointment. Budesonide. And more.
Some
of these are potent drugs that children should not be taking for long
periods of time because of side effects, including, ironically, many
of the very symptoms being treated. They are taking the drugs for
months and now even years because the children (and adults) are not
getting better. So the medical doctors prescribe more drugs, but the
persistence of the symptoms belies the diagnoses.
This
child suffers from frequent spontaneous nose bleeds, a symptom
consistent with chemical exposure. (photo courtesy Kindra Arnesen.)
The
same child also experiences unexplained hair loss. (photo courtesy
Kindra Arnesen.)
It
should be clear to the medical community by now that they are
misdiagnosing the illness and mistreating the patient. I believe the
children are suffering from chemical illness, not from biological
agents. This should have been clear back in 2010 after the first six
to eight rounds of antibiotics and medication prescribed for babies,
elders, coastal residents, visitors, and spill responders didn't
clear the symptoms. It should have been clear two years after the
disaster in March 2012 when BP completely reversed its position of
denial of any harm to human health from oil-dispersant exposure and
listed pages of same symptoms and illnesses that people had been
reporting for two years as now covered by the BP medical benefits
settlement (Exhibit
8)
-- so-called, I can only suppose, because it mostly benefits BP, but
that's another story.
The
problem is the illnesses -- like BP's oil -- just
don't "go away" because it's an inconvenience for oil
companies and the federal government in charge of an impossible
situation: There is no way to clean up oil spills, including tar
sands spills. But there are many ways to lessen the impacts to
workers and the public, none of which have been done to date in the
Gulf.
Plenty
has been done to lessen the liability and financial impacts to BP and
the other companies involved in this tragedy. The most recent
injustice was when U.S.
District Judge Barbier dismissed Nalco from lawsuits over
health problems stemming from use of its products. Barbier shielded
Nalco from liability because, he reasoned, the dispersants had been
approved by the federal government, and in most cases pre-approved by
the Gulf states for use during spill response. The judge also was
noted that a lawsuit might have a "chilling" effect on
future use of these same dispersants in oil spill response -- exactly
the opposite effect desired by the federal government and the oil
industry.
The
two main dispersants stockpiled in the United States for use on
future spills are Corexit 9500 and Corexit 9527A -- the same
dispersants that were known to be harmful to ecosystems and humans
before the BP disaster, and that proved to be so after the disaster.
These two dispersants are stockpiled in coastal communities around
the contiguous United States and in Alaska and Hawaii. Most are owned
either by the U.S. Coast Guard regional strike teams or the major
national Oil Spill Response Organizations.
The
federal government shields itself from any liability for use of these
and other dangerous oil spill response products. Even worse, the
federal government now considers human health an acceptable "risk
tradeoff" for dispersant use. The March
2012 Dispersant Use Initiative,
a document intended to guide and plan research needs and
decision-making in future spills, states that key needs include,
among others, "understanding risk to workers and public safety,
and communicating the risk successfully, andunderstanding
the trade offs of using dispersants with respect to human health"
(emphasis added).
In other words, what happened in the
Gulf of Mexico could happen to anyone who lives or works near, or
recreates, or visits America's coasts. Many of the same chemicals in
dispersants are also ingredients in diluents for tar sands and
drilling fluids for hydraulic fracturing and manufactured by -- guess
who -- Nalco. We need to stick together on this one, or all get sick
together. Making it right in the Gulf is up to all of us before the
next marine oil disaster.
Here
are some suggestions for how YOU can help make it right in the Gulf.
1.
Write a short letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in
support of the People's
Petition to amend the National Oil Spill Contingency Plan to ban
toxic chemicals, including Corexit dispersants, from use in U.S.
territorial waters.
The letter should refer the People's Petition, document number
AX120019088, and state who you are, why you care, and what you want
the EPA to do. Personal letters carry more weight than form letters.
Mail to: Lisa Jackson, Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency, Ariel Rios Building, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington,
DC 20460.
2.
Find out what dispersants or products are stockpiled in your backyard
for oil spill response. Start by contacting your State Emergency
Response Commission (google State name + SERC). The SERC page will
list all the Local Emergency Planning Committees. Contact an LEPC
near you and ask for a complete list of oil spill response products,
which they will have as required under the Community Right-to-Know
Act. For coastal communities, I would be surprised if that list did
not include the ubiquitous Corexit dispersants. Raise local support
to have your municipality pass a rights-based resolution to ban toxic
dispersants and chemicals during oil spill response within the city's
jurisdiction. A resolution
template is
available at www.ultimatecivics.org.
3.
Ask your congressional delegates to hold hearings to investigate the
link between Corexit dispersants and public health, especially
children's health, in the Gulf of Mexico. Ask your delegates to
support banning Corexit dispersants used during the BP Gulf disaster,
as human health "tradeoffs" cannot be justified.
I
would like to personally appeal to Warren Buffet to fund community
health clinics in the Gulf of Mexico. His stock trading company
Berkshire Hathaway bought shares of Nalco in 2009 before the BP
disaster as an investment on water filtration, which at the time was
most of Nalco's business. Berkshire divested its Nalco holdings in
late 2010 -- after Nalco made millions in dispersant sales. The idea
for community health clinics originated within the impacted
communities as a way of getting treatment for immediate needs, but it
was cherry-picked by BP as the centerpiece of BP's medical benefits
settlement. One clinic in particular in Jean Lafitte, La., was ready
to open its door to clients in fall 2011 but the doors remain closed
because the settlement is stalled in court. Opening that clinic, now
and independent of BP controls embedded in the settlement, could be
done with private
donations to the Jean Lafitte Health Clinic.
Early
into the BP disaster, I
warned people about
the short- and long-term consequences of exposure to oil and
dispersants. Now those consequences are hitting home -- especially
vulnerable are the children. Don't believe those BP ads. We need to
all help make this right for real.
Riki
Ott will be touring the Gulf of Mexico in February, helping
communities organize at the grassroots level to ban toxic chemical
dispersants. Persons interested in hosting a training should contact
via her web site, www.RikiOtt.com.
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