Deepwater Horizon: Seven years after explosion and oil spill study finds clean-up workers got sicker
On the seventh anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the health impacts that the spewing oil had on the people who came into contact with it are still raising questions about how the cleanup was handled.
The latest studies by the National Institutes of Health found that the thousands of clean-up workers who came into contact with the oil that coated the coastlines of four states in 2010 were more susceptible to health woes during the cleanup, according to Dale Sandler, chief of the NIH's epidemiology branch.
"People who had the greatest exposure were more likely than other workers to report itchy eyes, burning throats, coughing, wheezing and skin irritations," she said.
Often those symptoms were initially blamed on heat exhaustion, she said. But the NIH has found that the workers in contact with the oil experienced those symptoms two to three times more than other workers who weren't in contact with the oil.
"We were seeing symptoms that were not part of the definition of heat stress," she said.
More: http://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/deepwater-horizon-seven-years-after-explosion-and-oil-spill-study-finds/2320962
The Deepwater Horizon oil rig burns in the Gulf of Mexico on April 21, 2010, more than 50 miles southeast of Venice, La. BP and five Gulf states announced an $18.7 billion settlement Thursday, July 2, 2015, that resolves years of legal fighting over the environmental and economic damage done by the energy giant's oil spill in 2010. The settlement involves Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. (Associated Press)
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Who is going to stand up for those who risk their health and lives to protect and save others???
Last I knew, Senator Gillibrand was still fighting for them - and so many have already died.
