I would note that NIH was nowhere to be found to do baseline studies for oil spill workers and Gulf residents. Also, oil spill workers were sent out to work with no respirators even though they were working in areas reeking of oil.
NIH's Sandler is critical of anecdotal work done by others yet the NIH study will not be testing people in the Gulf who were not previously involved in the oil industry leaving the study's conclusions open to the legitimate criticism that workers could have been contaminated before they worked the spill.
The NIH's study is better than nothing but the government's way too little, way too late action in addressing the legitimate health needs of BP's victims is unconscionable. To add further insult, no medical care will be provided to victims, most of whom are too poor to afford health care.
The first 1,000 invitations to participate in the federal government's post-spill study on health effects were sent Monday to cleanup workers in four Gulf Coast states, federal authorities said.
Dale Sandler, chief epidemiologist for the National Institutes of Health, said the next 1,000 invitations will follow "in a few weeks," with the projected 10-year program ramping up to its goal of more than 100,000 invitees and 55,000 participants later this spring.
The study, run by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, targets individuals who worked in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama or Florida in the weeks after the Deepwater Horizon explosion last April. Researchers frame the effort as potentially ground-breaking, because it will involve tracking more individuals for a longer period than previous studies around the world.
Sandler said the purpose of the study is to identify potential links between physical and mental health conditions and exposure to crude oil and chemical dispersant. The existing body of science, Sandler said, is riddled with questions.
Indeed, the current circumstances feature on one side anecdotal evidence of sick workers and Gulf coast residents complaining of maladies that generally can be associated with organic compounds found in crude oil. Some scientists and physicians have weighed in with tests on samples of seafood, human blood and Gulf Coast soil that show elevated levels of some of the same toxins.
Yet state governments, the FDA and the seafood industry all vouch for the safety of the seafood supply, and President Barack Obama's National Oil Spill Commission acknowledged in its final report, released in January, only that health issues and the perception of inadequate government action are matters of concern.
"Whether allegations that the spill created health problems for responders and Gulf Coast residents are warranted does not change the perception among some that government has not been responsive to health concerns," the report says. The commission recommended that the Environmental Protection Agency establish a more thorough protocol to monitor health effects of major spills.
Sandler did not question the findings of scientists like Wilma Subra, a New Iberia biochemist who has been highly critical of the government's response on health issues. And Sandler said she has personally spoken with Gulf Coast residents who are symptomatic -- particularly respiratory and skin ailments -- and "trace their illnesses to the time of the oil spill."
But she said most of the data thus far was not gathered in a "systematic" way. "People who are sick are coming forward with illnesses and then they are tested," she said, as opposed to the federal study that will track individuals with a wide range of health factors and varying levels of exposure.
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Sandler noted that even with the study's breadth, scientists face a challenge because many subjects of the study have spent years in or near oil fields and continue to live and work there. "There is any number of ways that you might have elevated levels of, say, benzene in your blood," she said, referring to a component of crude oil.
The study will not provide medical care, but participants will be referred to providers as needed, Sandler said. She confirmed that the study's subjects will not include Gulf Coast residents who did not have direct exposure to the spill.