The Next Oil Spill Crisis: Human Health — Is the Federal Government Ready?

To the second, the data is less clear. To begin even estimating the effects, scientists need to know the real amount of oil flowing (which has been understated repeatedly by BP), as well as how its dispersed and breaking down in order to understand the effect on living organisms. According to a number of scientists quoted by McClatchy Newspapers access to data from BP (and apparently OSHA) has been very hard to access. That doesn’t bode well for future public health analysis.

Further, beyond the oil itself, the process of clean-up can cause further damage to food ecosystem. Two fishermen quoted on NPR noted that chemical dispersants work by pushing the oil down to bottom of the ocean floor and cover sea life that’s fed on by fish and other sea life. In fact, they cause further damage to marine life because the oil gets into what they call the ‘water column’. They further noted the Gulf is one of two areas in the world that the Blue Fin Tuna (important to the tuna industry) spawn. The other is the Mediterranean.

We don’t know the real effects of oil on food and human health, and long-term studies of oil related damage on the animal and human food ecosystem are limited. But let’s not fool ourselves for reasons of regional economic necessity, or worse, let BP fool us for reasons of public relations, limiting liability or stock price.

The fact is that the oil spill now covers some 7,500 square miles (according to the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science), and that means a large area of the ocean ecosystem traditionally farmed by Gulf area fisherman has been effected. The chemicals in oil; mecury, lead, and benzene to name a few have been now ingested by sea life. How is that these wouldn’t be passed along to humans if we ingest the animals as food products? Its illogical to think otherwise.

The government has a solemn duty to protect public health, and that includes both the workers on site and the greater public that could be exposed through the food system. This is not a time for glib pronouncements — who could forget Christie Todd Whitman’s pronouncement after 9-11 that the air at “Ground Zero” was safe to breathe? We now know it wasn’t and the severe health issues of first responders years later proves that in stark detail.

The White House, EPA, OSHA, NOAA, USDA, CDC, NIH and other agencies involved in studying the long term health effects that will emerge from this crisis owe the public an objective analysis of the food ecosystem. And they owe it to Americans despite whatever political and economic pressures come from interest groups. The health and welfare of the public depends on it, and quite frankly, so does the government’s credibility.

John Theriault, Principal