BP Criminality Awarded Government Contracts

Abby cites the hypocrisy of the DOJ taking two years to call out BP even though they have been awarding them contracts ever since they caused the largest environmental crisis in the history of the world.

The Gulf Now Features Eyeless Shrimp: Thanks, BP! (video, humor)

Gulf seafood deformities alarm scientists

Al Jazeera
Dahr Jamail


Eyeless shrimp and fish with lesions are becoming common, with BP oil pollution believed to be the likely cause.



New Orleans, LA - "The fishermen have never seen anything like this," Dr Jim Cowan told Al Jazeera. "And in my 20 years working on red snapper, looking at somewhere between 20 and 30,000 fish, I've never seen anything like this either."

Dr Cowan, with Louisiana State University's Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences started hearing about fish with sores and lesions from fishermen in November 2010.
Cowan's findings replicate those of others living along vast areas of the Gulf Coast that have been impacted by BP's oil and dispersants.

Gulf of Mexico fishermen, scientists and seafood processors have told Al Jazeera they are finding disturbing numbers of mutated shrimp, crab and fish that they believe are deformed by chemicals released during BP's 2010 oil disaster.

Along with collapsing fisheries, signs of malignant impact on the regional ecosystem are ominous: horribly mutated shrimp, fish with oozing sores, underdeveloped blue crabs lacking claws, eyeless crabs and shrimp - and interviewees' fingers point towards BP's oil pollution disaster as being the cause.

Eyeless shrimp

Tracy Kuhns and her husband Mike Roberts, commercial fishers from Barataria, Louisiana, are finding eyeless shrimp.

"At the height of the last white shrimp season, in September, one of our friends caught 400 pounds of these," Kuhns told Al Jazeera while showing a sample of the eyeless shrimp.

According to Kuhns, at least 50 per cent of the shrimp caught in that period in Barataria Bay, a popular shrimping area that was heavily impacted by BP's oil and dispersants, were eyeless. Kuhns added: "Disturbingly, not only do the shrimp lack eyes, they even lack eye sockets."

Eyeless shrimp, from a catch of 400 pounds
of eyeless shrimp, said to be caught
September 22, 2011, in Barataria Bay, Louisiana

"Some shrimpers are catching these out in the open Gulf [of Mexico]," she added, "They are also catching them in Alabama and Mississippi. We are also finding eyeless crabs, crabs with their shells soft instead of hard, full grown crabs that are one-fifth their normal size, clawless crabs, and crabs with shells that don't have their usual spikes … they look like they've been burned off by chemicals."

On April 20, 2010, BP's Deepwater Horizon oilrig exploded, and began the release of at least 4.9 million barrels of oil. BP then used at least 1.9 million gallons of toxic Corexit dispersants to sink the oil.

Keath Ladner, a third generation seafood processor in Hancock County, Mississippi, is also disturbed by what he is seeing.

"I've seen the brown shrimp catch drop by two-thirds, and so far the white shrimp have been wiped out," Ladner told Al Jazeera. "The shrimp are immune compromised. We are finding shrimp with tumors on their heads, and are seeing this everyday."

While on a shrimp boat in Mobile Bay with Sidney Schwartz, the fourth-generation fisherman said that he had seen shrimp with defects on their gills, and "their shells missing around their gills and head".
"We've fished here all our lives and have never seen anything like this," he added.

Ladner has also seen crates of blue crabs, all of which were lacking at least one of their claws.

Poisoned in the Gulf

Texas Observer
Sue Sturgis

A year after the BP oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, a growing number of cleanup workers and coastal residents are reporting debilitating health problems associated with exposure to toxic chemicals in crude oil and dispersants. Faced with inaction from the federal government, victims are organizing a grassroots movement to demand action.

A special Facing South investigation by Sue Sturgis
"Already, this oil spill is the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced. And unlike an earthquake or a hurricane, it's not a single event that does its damage in a matter of minutes of days. The millions of gallons of oil that have spilled into the Gulf of Mexico are more like an epidemic, one that we will be fighting for months and even years."


-- President Obama, Oval Office Address, June 15, 2010

Clayton Matherne was just a quarter-mile from BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig when it exploded into flames a year ago today in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 workers, injuring 17 others and triggering the largest oil spill in U.S. history.

At the time, Matherne worked as a boat engineer for Guilbeau Marine, shipping supplies for rig workers. He struggles for words to describe what he witnessed that fateful night.

"It still gives me nightmares today," he says.

But Matherne's nightmares were just beginning. Two days after the blast, Matherne—a resident of the small town of Lockport in Louisiana's Lafourche Parish—found himself back at the site of the disaster. BP contracted with Guilbeau Marine to help with the oil cleanup.

Less than  about an eighth of a mile from where Matherne was skimming oil, other contractors were trying to burn oil off the water's surface, unleashing massive plumes of black smoke into the air. Meanwhile, low-flying planes dumped chemical dispersants on the growing slick—and directly on Matherne and his fellow cleanup workers.

From the very beginning, Matherne says, he and other workers asked for basic safety equipment—chemical suits and respirators—to protect them from the pollution that was everywhere around them. BP refused to provide any.

"So we went and bought our own," Matherne says. "But BP told us that if we were caught using it, we were fired."

Almost immediately, Matherne and his fellow workers began experiencing severe headaches and breathing problems. Some workers passed out on the job. Matherne went to the emergency room and was diagnosed with "reactive airway disease secondary to chemical exposure" and sent back to work. Eventually Matherne began vomiting blood. His captain called the BP official overseeing the cleanup operations and told him he feared his employee was dying.

On May 30, Matherne was airlifted to shore and sent to an emergency clinic, where he says he was diagnosed with acute chemical poisoning. Today his blood still has high levels of some very dangerous toxins, including benzene, arsenic, mercury and xylene. Many of the chemicals in his blood commonly show up after exposure to crude oil. He was eventually transferred to Terrebonne General Medical Center in Houma, La., where he spent five days choking up blood. He was treated with high doses of steroids and released.

Today, Matherne's lungs are working at only a fraction of their capacity, and he experiences paralyzing headaches. He's losing control over his bodily functions and faces the possibility of having to wear diapers—a terrible prospect for a 35-year-old man who before the BP disaster trained as a power lifter and wrestler and prided himself on his physical strength.

"I can't even pick up a gallon of milk from the icebox now," he says. "My wife has to help me put on my shoes."

'Something I've never seen'

Unfortunately, Matherne's story is not an unusual one on the Gulf Coast a year after the BP disaster. An investigation by Facing South finds that people across the region from Louisiana to Florida—cleanup workers as well as coastal residents who weren't directly involved in the cleanup—are reporting unusual health problems that they blame on the oil spill and the chemical dispersants that were deployed in unprecedented amounts.

Marylee Orr, executive director of the Louisiana Environmental Action Network, says she fields a couple of calls a day from people who say they were exposed to BP oil and/or chemical dispersants and who now report an array of health problems, including respiratory and gastrointestinal disorders, blurred vision, rashes and other skin conditions, bleeding from the rectum and ears, and bloody urine.

Following Hurricane Katrina, Orr's group assisted cleanup workers who experienced health impacts from exposure to chemicals and pathogens churned up by the storm, but she says those problems pale in scope and severity to what's unfolding now.

"I want you to understand, it is something I've never seen, and I've been doing this work for 25 years," Orr says.

Among the mounting pieces of evidence that the BP spill has unleashed a new set of public health threats in the Gulf:

* Preliminary findings of a BP spill coastal population impact study [pdf] released last August by the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University found that over 40 percent of the population living within 10 miles of the affected coastal areas had experienced some direct exposure to the oil spill, and that both adults and children directly exposed to the oil were twice as likely to report new physical or mental health issues as those who were not.

* A door-to-door survey of 954 households conducted across Southeast Louisiana from July through October of last year by the Louisiana Bucket Brigade found that 46 percent of respondents reported being exposed to oil or dispersant, with 72 percent of those who believed they were exposed reporting at least one associated symptom. Residents reported a sudden onset of symptoms including nausea, dizziness and skin irritation—all of which are representative of chemical exposures.

* Earlier this year, LEAN released the results of tests performed on blood samples collected from a dozen Gulf residents, fishers and cleanup workers who complained of health problems they believed to be related to the oil spill. All of those tested had high blood levels of ethylbenzene, a component of crude oil that causes respiratory and neurological problems as well as damage to the blood, liver and kidneys. Eleven of those tested had relatively high concentrations of xylenes, a chemical in oil linked to respiratory and neurological problems as well as organ damage. Four of the people tested showed unusually high levels of benzene, a constituent of oil that's known to cause blood cancer and other serious health problems.

* A team of three scientific divers who worked in the area near the BP oil spill site last summer while wearing full wetsuits report that they began to develop unusual symptoms and by October quit diving. However, they have continued to suffer from health problems that include bloody stools, bleeding from the nose and eyes, nausea, diarrhea, stomach cramps, dizziness and confusion. They have had their blood tested and discovered elevated levels of ethylbenzene and xylene.

* A number of people who swam in Gulf waters during the oil spill have stepped forward to talk about long-term health problems they believe are related to their exposure to the oil and/or chemical dispersants. They include Florida resident Paul Doomm, who was a healthy 22-year-old about to join the Marine Corps when he swam on an open beach off the Florida Panhandle early last summer. By July he began suffering severe headaches, and by Thanksgiving he was paralyzed on the left side of his body and suffering from seizures. He was diagnosed with brain lesions. Meanwhile, Mississippi resident Steven Aguinaga reports that since swimming at Fort Walton Beach in Florida last July he began suffering from chronic chest pain, bloody urine and vomiting. A 33-year-old friend who went swimming with him and then went to work on the BP cleanup also got sick and died suddenly in August. 

BP spill-related health problems have been an urgent topic of discussion at various public forums held to discuss the disaster. During a meeting in New Orleans in January to discuss the report released by the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, many Gulf residents described lingering health concerns, with attendees extracting a promise from Commissioner Francis Beinecke of the Natural Resources Defense Council to take their concerns back to the White House. Health worries also came up repeatedly during a Feb. 28 meeting of the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force in New Orleans.

In March 2011, John Jopling—an attorney with the nonprofit Mississippi Justice Center—attended a town hall meeting in Bay St. Louis, Miss., one of a series organized by state Attorney General Jim Hood. Jopling went expecting to hear complaints about BP's complex and frustrating claims process; instead, person after person spoke about health problems they attributed to the spill and/or dispersants.

"We were all blown away by what we heard there," Jopling reports. "Nothing prepared me for it."

He describes how three men told strikingly similar stories about their experiences scouting oil for BP and then developing a chronic blistering, peeling skin condition on their arms that they displayed for the shocked crowd. All said they had difficulty in finding doctors willing to treat them.

Attorney General Hood also seemed surprised. "One of the things that kind of startled me are the people that are concerned about breathing in the fumes, particularly last summer, the effects from it," Hood later told Mississippi Public Broadcasting. "Many are having effects and there are no doctors here than can really analyze whether it may be as a result of this oil explosion."

Hood said he would look into having the state health department or the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention do some testing in the area.

A lack of options

That a leading Gulf state official was just considering the possibility of contacting federal health authorities, nearly a year after BP's rig explosion, underscores what many see as a breakdown in the government's public health response to the disaster.

The BP spill commission noted the shortcomings in the ability of current law to address such hazards, recommending that the government be given more power to monitor health impacts. The report also called for long-term tracking of responders' health and community health in the most affected coastal areas, calling such efforts "warranted and scientifically important." Indeed, last September the National Institutes of Health announced that it was undertaking a $20 million study looking at potential impacts of the BP spill on cleanup workers.

"However," the report states, "the focus on long-term research cannot overshadow the need to provide immediate medical assistance to affected communities, which have suffered from limited access to healthcare services." It notes that the health care infrastructure in the Gulf was badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The lack of medical options for the BP spill victims is a reality familiar to Matherne, who—like others in the wake of the disaster—has had a hard time finding a doctor willing to treat him. He says several hung up the phone as soon as he said he got sick doing cleanup work for BP. He figures they didn't want to get involved because of the possible legal ramifications.

Eventually he found Dr. Mike Robichaux of Raceland, La., an ear, nose and throat specialist and former state senator who has stepped forward to provide free care for people who believe they have been sickened by the BP spill and to advocate for their needs. Robichaux has Matherne on high doses of steroids in hopes of keeping his organs from shutting down and has referred him to a chemical illness specialist who plans to try detoxification therapy in the next several weeks.

If that doesn't work, the doctors have given Matherne five years to live at most.

Like many others in the Gulf, Matherne has channeled his anger and frustration into advocacy, joining a grassroots movement demanding that officials pay attention to widespread reports of health impacts from the disaster. Matherne is speaking out at public hearings, showing up at press conferences and telling his story to anyone who will listen.

"These companies took my life from me," Matherne says. "The thing that keeps me going every day is that I'm pissed off."

Environmental activists occupy Arctic oil rig

The Independent

Cairn Offshore Drilling

Greenpeace activists climbed aboard an oil rig off Turkey today in a bid to prevent it from leaving for Greenland to begin deep-water drilling in the Arctic. 

Eleven activists in rock-climbing gear used speedboats to intercept and then climb on to the Leiv Eiriksson after it had left a port in Istanbul. 

They climbed the rig's derrick, unfurling a banner that read: "Stop Arctic destruction" and "Go Beyond Oil, Choose Clean Energy". 

The platform, bound for Greenland's Baffin Bay, did not stop and was continuing on its course, heading towards the Dardanelles strait with the activists on board, Deniz Sozudogru, a Greenpeace spokeswoman for the Mediterranean region, said. 

There were no Turkish coastguard boats trailing the oil rig, she said. The Dardanelles connects the Sea of Marmara to the Aegean sea. 

Activists from Britain, Denmark, Canada, Poland, Germany, Slovakia, Austria, Sweden and Turkey were prepared to occupy the rig for days, according to the group. 

It said the oil rig, operated by Scottish company Cairn Energy, has "a very short window in which to drill their four new exploratory wells" due to extreme weather conditions in the Arctic.

Cairn Energy confirmed an "incident" involving Greenpeace off Turkey's coast and said the vessel was continuing "in transit to take part in Cairn's 2011 exploration programme in Greenland." 

The company said it was operating at the invitation of Greenland's government and had successfully drilled three wells there in 2010. 

Officials added: "Wherever it is active, Cairn seeks to operate in a safe and prudent manner. Cairn respects the rights of individuals and organisations to express their views in a safe manner."

Greenpeace wants Cairn to suspend deep-water drilling after the spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

"Freezing temperatures, severe weather and a highly-remote location pose unprecedented challenges to any oil spill response in the Arctic and mean a spill could be impossible to contain and clean up," Greenpeace said. 

Leiv Eiriksson, one of the world's largest rigs, had been exploring possible oil and gas in the Black Sea under a joint venture between Turkey and Brazil's Petrobas.

The Biggest Chemical Poisoning Crisis in US History

One year after the BP oil spill, experts describe the the impact of the disaster on wildlife, the environment, and human health as “catastrophic”


by Dahr Jamail

Aj Jazeeera, April 16, 1011

Dead Dolphins in Gulf

April 20, 2011 marks the one-year anniversary of BP’s catastrophic oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. On this day in 2010 the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, causing oil to gush from 5,000 feet below the surface into the ninth largest body of water on the planet.

At least 4.9 million barrels of BP’s oil would eventually be released into the Gulf of Mexico before the well was capped 87 days later.

It is, to date, the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry. BP has used at least 1.9 million gallons of toxic dispersants to sink the oil, in an effort the oil giant claimed was aimed at keeping the oil from reaching shore.

Critics believe the chemical dispersants were used simply to hide the oil and minimise BP’s responsibility for environmental fines.

Earlier this month Transocean Ltd, the owner of the Deepwater Horizon, gave its top executives bonuses for achieving what it described as the “best year in safety performance in our company’s history”. Transocean CEO Steve Newman’s bonus was $374,062.

BP has plans to restart deepwater drilling on 10 wells in the Gulf of Mexico this summer after being granted permission by US regulators.

Meanwhile, marine and wildlife biologists, toxicologists, and medical doctors have described the impact of the disaster upon the environment and human health as “catastrophic,” and have told Al Jazeera that this is only the beginning of that what they expect to be an environmental and human health crisis that will likely span decades.

The demise of gulf vertebrates 

Less than four months after the disaster began, very large fish-kills began to appear along the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida.

On August 18, a team from Georgia Sea Grant and the University of Georgia released a report that estimated 70-79 per cent of the oil that gushed from the well “has not been recovered and remains a threat to the ecosystem”. More recent studies estimate that figure could be closer to 90 per cent.

Dr Ed Cake, a biological oceanographer, as well as a marine and oyster biologist, has “great concern” about the fish kills over the last year, which he feels are likely directly related to the BP oil disaster.
In recent months, more than 290 corpses of dolphins and their newborn have washed ashore in the areas of the Gulf most heavily affected by the disaster, along with scores of dead endangered sea turtles.

“If we use several models to see what is going on, the sea turtles and neo-natal dolphin deaths, the impacts of the dispersed oil are lingering”, Cake told Al Jazeera. “The oil is out there and still coming onto our shores”.

On May 20 of last year, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) told BP it had 24 hours to find a less toxic alternative to its dispersants, but the EPA’s request was ignored.

Then on May 25, BP was given a directive by the EPA to scale back their spraying of the Gulf of Mexico with dispersants. The US Coast Guard overlooked the EPA’s directive and provided BP with 74 exemptions in 48 days to use the dispersants.

A March 1987 report titled Organic Solvent Neurotoxicity, by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), states:

“The acute neurotoxic effects of organic solvent exposure in workers and laboratory animals are narcosisanaesthesiaia, central nervous system (CNS) depression, respiratory arrest, unconsciousness, and death.”

The dispersants are banned in at least 19 countries, including the UK.
Cake’s assessment for sea turtle and dolphin populations in the Gulf is bleak.

“The two models of the turtles and dolphins indicate that something is drastically wrong in the marine environment, that I believe point towards the demise of these vertebrates in the Gulf.”

Underscoring his concern, a new study published in Conservation Letters this March reveals that the true impact of BP’s oil disaster on wildlife may be gravely underestimated.

The study argues that fatality figures based on the number of recovered animal carcasses will not give a true death toll, which may be 50 times higher than believed since most carcasses sink before they are spotted.

Cake believes the National Marine Fisheries Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have been remiss in determining the cause of the deaths.

“In the year since the spill began, NOAA admits to doing no tissue sampling, which to me is scientifically incredible, for if you have forensic samples, you are bound by protocols to have them analysed right away so they do not degrade, unless your purpose is not to know what is killing these dolphins”, he said.

In February the Obama administration, via the National Marine Fisheries Service, issued a gag order to force marine scientists who were contracted to document the spikes in dolphin mortality and to collect specimens and tissue samples to keep their findings confidential.

Bleak prognosis 

Dolpins and sea turtles can be considered the canaries in the coalmine in the Gulf since they are at the top of the food chain and directly reflect what is happening to the marine environment in which they live.

Ed Cake, a biological oceanographer, as well as a marine and oyster biologist, has “great concern” about the fish kills over the last year, which he feels are likely directly related to the BP oil disaster.

“Adult dolphins systems are picking up whatever is in the system out there, and we know the oil is out there and working it’s way up the food chain through the food web and dolphins are at the top of that food chain.”

Cake explained: “The chemicals then move into their lipids, fat, and then when they are pregnant, their young rely on this fat, and so it’s no wonder dolphins are having developmental issues and still births”.
Since last fall, Dr Wilma Subra, a chemist and Macarthur Fellow, has been conducting tests on seafood and sediment samples along the Gulf for chemicals present in BP’s crude oil and toxic dispersants.

“Tests have shown significant levels of oil pollution in oysters and crabs along the Louisiana coastline”, Subra told Al Jazeera, “We have also found high levels of hydrocarbons in the soil and vegetation.”

Cake, who lives in Mississippi, said:

“In the past months we’ve lost the young of the year population of dolphins in this area. We are not seeing any young of the year dolphins in the Mississippi and Alabama coastal area. The question is, for us as humans, could we withstand a similar impact if all our children were born dead because of environmental pollutants? I would say we could not.”

It has been more than 31 years since the 1979 Ixtoc-1 oil disaster in Mexico’s Bay of Campeche, and the oysters, clams, and mangrove forests have still not recovered in their oiled habitats in seaside estuaries of the Yucatan Peninsula.

It has been over 21 years since the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil disaster in Alaska, and the herring fishery that failed in the wake of that disaster has still not returned.

From a biological oceanographer’s perspective, we are still in the short-term impact stage of BP’s oil disaster. Cake, who is 70-years-old, said:

“I will not be alive to see the Gulf of Mexico recover. Without funding and serious commitment, these things will not come back to pre-April 2010 levels for decades.”

Toxic chemicals ‘in the air’


Two-year-old Gaven Tillman of Pass Christian, Mississippi, has been diagnosed with severe upper respiratory, sinus, and viral infections. His temperature has reached more than 39 degrees and he has been sick since last September.

“He has been seen by nine different doctors and had twenty-four doctor & ER visits,” Shirley Tillman, his grandmother and former BP oil cleanup worker told Al Jazeera, “Some of his diagnoses include severe inflammation of his upper sinuses, upper respiratory infections, ear infections, sore throats, headaches, fever, vomiting & diarrhea.”

Both Shirley and her husband Don’s blood tested positive for chemicals from BP’s crude oil, but now Gaven’s blood has tested positive as well.

“We expected to find BP’s toxins in our bodies after working in the VOO [Vessels of Opportunity] program,” she added, “But we did not expect our two-year-old grandson to test positive for having them too, with levels higher than ours. He has not been to the beach and has not eaten any seafood. Therefore, it is in the air.”

Shirley Tillman, along with her son and husband, all tested positive for having BP’s toxins in their blood [Erika Blumenfeld/Al Jazeera] Dr Riki Ott, a toxicologist, marine biologist, and Exxon Valdez survivor, told Al Jazeera that: “The dispersants used in BP’s draconian experiment contain solvents such as petroleum distillates and 2-butoxyethanol.

Solvents dissolve oil, grease, and rubber”, she continued, “It should be no surprise that solvents are also notoriously toxic to people, something the medical community has long known”.

“They evaporate in air and are easily inhaled, they penetrate skin easily, and they cross the placenta into fetuses.”

“For example, 2- butoxyethanol [in BP’s Corexit dispersants] is a human health hazard substance; it is a fetal toxin and it breaks down blood cells, causing blood and kidney disorders”, Ott said.

Pathways of exposure to the dispersants are inhalation, ingestion, skin, and eye contact. Health impacts include headaches, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pains, chest pains, respiratory system damage, skin sensitization, hypertension, central nervous system depression, neurotoxic effects, cardiac arrhythmia, and cardiovascular damage. They are teratogenic, mutagenic, and carcinogenic.

Since last July, Al Jazeera has spoken with scores of Gulf residents, fishermen, and clean-up workers who have blamed the aforementioned symptoms they are experiencing on the chemicals from BP’s oil and dispersants.

“I have critically high levels of chemicals in my body,” 33-year-old Steven Aguinaga of Hazlehurst, Mississippi told Al Jazeera.

Aguinaga and his close friend Merrick Vallian went swimming at Fort Walton Beach, Florida, in July 2010.

“At that time I had no knowledge of what dispersants were, but within a few hours, we were drained of energy and not feeling good,” he said, “I’ve been extremely sick ever since.”

According to chemist Bob Naman, these chemicals create an even more toxic substance when mixed with crude oil.

“I’m scared of what I’m finding,” Naman, who works at the Analytical Chemical Testing Lab in Mobile, Alabama, added, “This is an unprecedented environmental catastrophe.”

Aguinaga’s health has been in dramatic decline.

“I have terrible chest pain, at times I can’t seem to get enough oxygen, and I’m constantly tired with pains all over my body,” Aguinaga explained, “At times I’m pissing blood, vomiting dark brown stuff, and every pore of my body is dispensing water.”

And Aguinaga’s friend Vallian is now dead.

“After we got back from our vacation in Florida, Merrick went to work for a company contracted by BP to clean up oil in Grand Isle, Louisiana,” Aguinaga said of his 33-year-old physically fit friend. Two weeks after that he dropped dead.”

Problems will continue
Most of the human blood Dr Subra has tested has toxic chemicals present at levels several times higher than the national average.

“Ethylbenzene, m,p-Xylene and Hexane are volatile organic chemicals that are present in the BP crude oil”, she said.
“We are finding these in excess of the 95th percentile, which is the average for the entire nation. Sometimes we’re finding amounts five to 10 times in excess of the 95th percentile.”

Ethylbenzene is a form of benzene present in the body when it begins to be broken down. m,p-Xylene is a clear, colorless, sweet-smelling, flammable liquid that is refined from crude oil and is primarily used as a solvent.

Al Jazeera asked Subra what she thought the local, state and federal governments should be doing about the ongoing chemical exposures.

“There is a lack of concern by the government agencies and the [oil] industry,” She said, “There is a leaning towards wanting to say it is all fixed and let us move on, when it is not. The crude oil is continuing to come onshore in tar mats, balls, and strings.”

“So the exposure continues. There is still a large amount of crude in the marshes and buried on the beaches. As long as that pathway is there for exposure, these problems will continue quite a long time into the future.”

Dr Mike Robicheux is a doctor in Louisiana who has been treating scores of people he says are being made sick from BP’s toxic chemicals.

Robicheux says new patients from the exposure are coming into his office daily, and believes that the broader medical community across the Gulf Coast are either unwilling or unable to deal with the crisis.
Robicheux, who has appealed to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for help, said:

“The medical community has shut this down…They either don’t understand or are afraid to deal with it properly because they are afraid of the oil and gas industry.”
“This is the biggest public health crisis from a chemical poisoning in the history of this country,” Robicheux told Al Jazeera, “We are going to have thousands of people who are extremely sick, and if they aren’t treated, a large number of them are going to die.”

Mystery illnesses plague Louisiana oil spill crews

Raw Story/Agence France Press

RACELAND, Louisiana — Jamie Simon worked on a barge in the oily waters for six months following the BP spill last year, cooking for the cleanup workers, washing their clothes and tidying up after them.

One year later, the 32-year-old said she still suffers from a range of debilitating health problems, including racing heartbeat, vomiting, dizziness, ear infections, swollen throat, poor sight in one eye and memory loss.

She blames toxic elements in the crude oil and the dispersants sprayed to dissolve it after the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico about 50 miles (80 kilometers) off the coast of Louisiana on April 20, 2010.

"I was exposed to those chemicals, which I questioned, and they told me it was just as safe as Dawn dishwashing liquid and there was nothing for me to worry about," she said of the BP bosses at the job site.

The local doctor, Mike Robichaux, said he has seen as many as 60 patients like Simon in recent weeks, as this small southern town of 10,000 bordered by swamp land and sugar cane fields grapples with a mysterious sickness that some believe is all BP's fault.

Andy LaBoeuf, 51, said he was paid $1,500 per day to use his boat to go out on the water and lay boom to contain some of the 4.9 million barrels of oil that spewed from the bottom of the ocean after the BP well ruptured.

But four months of that job left him ill and unable to work, and he said he recently had to refinance his home loan because he could not pay his taxes.

"I have just been sick for a long time. I just got sick and I couldn't get better," LaBoeuf said, describing memory problems and a sore throat that has nagged him for a year.

Robichaux, an ear, nose and throat specialist whose office an hour's drive southwest of New Orleans is nestled on a roadside marked with handwritten signs advertising turtle meat for sale, says he is treating many of the local patients in their homes.

"Their work ethic is so strong, they are so stoic, they don't want people to know when they're sick," he said.

"Ninety percent of them are getting worse... Nobody has a clue as to what it is."

According to a roster compiled by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, a total of 52,000 workers were responding to the Gulf oil spill as of August 2010.

The state of Louisiana has reported 415 cases of health problems linked to the spill, with symptoms including sore throats, irritated eyes, respiratory tract infections, headaches and nausea.
But Bernard Goldstein, an environmental toxicologist and professor at the University of Pittsburgh, said the US government's method of collecting health data on the workers is flawed.

For instance, a major study of response workers by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences was not funded until six months after the spill, a critical delay that affects both the biology and the recall ability of the workers.

"It is too late if you go six months later," he told AFP.

Benzene, a known carcinogen present in crude oil, disappears from a person's blood within four months, Goldstein said.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, are pollutants that can cause genetic mutations and cancer. They are of particular interest in studying long-term health, but without a baseline for comparison it is difficult to know where they came from -- the oil spill or somewhere else in the environment.
"They last in the body for a longer period of time but they also get confounded by, if you will,
obscured by, other sources of PAHs," like eating barbecued meat or smoking cigarettes, said Goldstein.
Further blurring the situation, Louisiana already ranks very low in the overall health of its residents compared to the rest of the United States -- between 44th and 49th out of the 50 states according to government data.

Some similar symptoms, including eye irritation, breathing problems, nausea and psychological stress, have been seen among responders to the Prestige oil tanker spill off Spain in 2002 and the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 off Alaska.

Local chemist Wilma Subra has been helping test people's blood for volatile solvents, and said levels of benzene among cleanup workers, divers, fishermen and crabbers are as high as 36 times that of the general population.

"As the event progresses we are seeing more and more people who are desperately ill," she said.
"Clearly it is showing that this is ongoing exposure," Subra said, noting that pathways include contact with the skin, eating contaminated seafood or breathing polluted air.

"We have been asking the federal agencies to please provide medical care from physicians who are trained in toxic exposure."

She said she has received no response.

Asked for comment, BP said in an email that "protection of response workers was a top priority" and that it had conducted "extensive monitoring of response workers" in coordination with several government agencies.

"Illness and injury reports were tracked and documented during the response, and the medical data indicate they did not differ appreciably from what would be expected among a workforce of this size under normal circumstances," it added.

Any compensation for sick workers would fall under state law, and "BP does not make these determinations, which must be supported by acceptable medical evidence."

For Simon, her way of life has been completely altered. She said she takes pain relievers every day just to function.

A couple of weeks ago, she read in a local newspaper that other ex-cleanup workers were feeling sick too, and her grandmother urged her to see a doctor.

"I never put the two together. I am just realizing that this is possibly related," she said.

Emails Expose BP's Attempts To Control Research Into Impact Of Gulf Oil Spill

Free Internet Press

BP officials tried to take control of a $500 million fund pledged by the oil company for independent research into the consequences of the Gulf of Mexico disaster, it has emerged.

Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show BP officials openly discussing how to influence the work of scientists supported by the fund, which was created by the oil company in May last year.

Russell Putt, a BP environmental expert, wrote in an email to colleagues on June 24,  2010: "Can we 'direct' GRI [Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative] funding to a specific study (as we now see the governor's offices trying to do)? What influence do we have over the vessels/equipment driving the studies vs the questions?".

The email was obtained by Greenpeace and shared with the Guardian newspaper.

The documents are expected to reinforce fears voiced by scientists that BP has too much leverage over studies into the impact of last year's oil disaster.

Those concerns go far beyond academic interest into the impact of the spill. BP faces billions in fines and penalties, and possible criminal charges arising from the disaster. Its total liability will depend in part on a final account produced by scientists on how much oil entered the gulf from its blown-out well, and the damage done to marine life and coastal areas in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The oil company disputes the government estimate that 4.1 million barrels of oil entered the gulf.
 
There is no evidence in the emails that BP officials were successful in directing research. The fund has since established procedures to protect its independence.

Other documents obtained by Greenpeace suggest that the politics of oil spill science was not confined to BP. The White House clashed with officials from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last summer when drafting the administration's account of what has happened to the spilled oil.

On 4 August, Jane Lubchenco, the NOAA administrator, demanded that the White House issue a correction after it claimed that the "vast majority" of BP oil was gone from the Gulf.

A few days earlier, Lisa Jackson, the head of the EPA, and her deputy, Bob Perciasepe, had also objected to the White House estimates of the amount of oil dispersed in the gulf. "These calculations are extremely rough estimates yet when they are put into the press, which we want to happen, they will take on a life of their own," Perciasepe wrote.

Commenting on BP's email discussions about directing research, a spokeswoman for the oil company said: "BP appointed an independent research board to construct the long-term research programme."



Kert Davies, Greenpeace U.S. research director, said the oil company had crossed a line. "It's outrageous to see these BP executives discussing how they might manipulate the science programme," said Davies. "Their motivation last summer is abundantly clear. They wanted control of the science." 


The $500 million fund, which is to be awarded over the next decade, is by far the biggest potential source of support to scientists hoping to establish what happened to the oil.

A number of scientists had earlier expressed concerns that BP would attempt to point scientists to convenient areas of study – or try to suppress research that did not suit its business.

The first round of funds were awarded last May to a consortium of gulf coast researchers. "The rest we are all waiting with bated breath," said Ajit Subramanian, a marine scientist at the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory. "A lot of the funds might be for understanding future spills. It is also unclear what kind of strings will be attached with that money." 


Another email, written by Karen Ragoonanan-Jalim, a BP environmental officer based in Trinidad, contains minutes of a meeting in Houma, Louisiana, in which officials discussed what kind of studies might best serve the oil company's interests. 


Under agenda item two, she writes: "Discussions around GRI and whether or not BP can influence this long-term research programme ($500 million) to undertake the studies we believe will be useful in terms of understanding the fate and effects of the oil on the environment, eg can we steer the research in support of restoration ecology?" 


Ragoonanan-Jalim acknowledges that BP may not have that degree of control. "It may be possible for us to suggest the direction of the studies but without guarantee that they will be done." 


The email goes on: "How do we determine what biological/ecological studies we (BP) will need to do in order to satisfy specific requirements (legislative/litigation, informing the response and remediation/restoration strategies)."



Intellpuke: You can read this article by Guardian U.S. environment correspondent Suzanne Goldenberg, reporting from Washington, D.C., in context here:
 
www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/15/bp-control-science-gulf-oil-spill

The BP oil spill - it's sickening

Braincrave

A fellow Braincraver wants to alert us, and we should take heed of his warning. He lives in Florida on the coast. Over this past month, his health has been deteriorating significantly. He's getting headaches. He's losing his memory. He's having problems thinking straight. Based on discussions with doctors and a blood test, what does it appear is the cause? The clean-up from the recent BP oil spill. It appears that, more and more, people who live along the Gulf coast are getting sicker due to airborne volatile organic compounds (VOC) and and other contaminants related to the oil spill. Now, according to the EPA, there's really nothing to worry about because, according to them, air quality levels "have been primarily in the 'good' to 'moderate' range." Uh huh. Is that like when the EPA lied after 9/11, claiming that the air was "safe" to breathe in New York? His blood was just tested by Metametrix for chemical exposure (the same firm as in the article below). The results? Over 8 times the normal for ethylbenzene, a toxic substance that the CDC acknowledges causes cancer, among a host of other illnesses. His xylene level is also significantly higher than normal and consistent with what others are seeing in their bloodstreams (see here as well). His hexane is "off the charts." He has given notice to his landlord and is moving to somewhere with fresh air almost immediately. He wanted to bring this to your attention, especially to those of you who live in any of the Gulf coast region. Perhaps you should get your blood levels checked too? What do you think people who live in the Gulf coast region should do? What would you do?

FTA: "Even as BP and US government officials continue to declare the oil spill over at Mississippi Canyon 252 and the cleanup operation an unqualified success, for the first time blood tests on sickened humans have shown signs of exposure to high levels of toxic chemicals related to crude oil and dispersants. Some of the individuals tested have not been on the beaches, were not involved in any cleanup operations or in the Gulf water -- they simply live along the Gulf Coast. Several of them are now leaving the area due to a combination of illness and economic hardship. As the media's attention has moved on and the public interest wanes, the suffering and hardship for people along the entire Gulf Coast of the United States from Louisiana to Florida continues to worsen. While BP and the government are scaling back cleanup operations and distancing themselves from legal liability for the environmental destruction, economic hardship, sickness and death resulting from the largest environmental disaster in our nation's history, the situation continues to deteriorate.

The use of the Corexit dispersant 9500 and the highly toxic 9527 by BP, with the approval and assistance of the US Coast Guard and EPA, has been the subject of intense scrutiny and criticism. Never before has such a huge quantity of the toxic compound been used anywhere on the planet. Most countries including NATO allies ban it's use and will only grant approval as a last resort after other methods have failed. Britain has banned its use altogether. The NOAA provided extensive information summarizing other nation's policies in regards to Corexit after Senator Barbara Mikulski demanded the information from EPA administrator Lisa Jackson during congressional hearings in July. While the dispersant serves to break down crude oil on the surface and thus makes the oil invisible from the air, it is highly toxic and bioaccumulates in the marine food chain. In humans it is a known carcinogen and its use was widely condemned after Exxon/Valdez and the horrifying health effects on the populations exposed to it there. As it evaporates and becomes airborne, the toxic compounds have moved on shore, creating health impacts that, although apparently large from the numbers of people affected, the full extent is unknown. BP and the US government have effectively been performing the largest chemical experiment in history on a civilian population without their knowledge or consent.

Within two days after arriving in the region in mid-July, everyone on our team began getting sick. After our first day out on the water with Captain Lori of Dolphin Queen Cruises touring the lagoons around Orange Beach, Alabama, we all had extreme headaches... That evening I developed a gagging, coughing reflex that was so intense and persistent it was impossible to speak to my daughter on the phone. The symptoms typical for high levels of chemical exposure such as burning, itching eyes, constantly runny nose, chronic coughing, burning sore throat, chest congestion, and lethargy progressively intensified. Over the next several weeks these symptoms continued to worsen until I developed chemically-induced pneumonitis. Before leaving the area I had blood tests initiated to determine if the levels of exposure were high enough to be be detected. The musical activists Sassafrass and the tireless efforts of Michelle Nix allowed myself and several local residents to have blood drawn and tested by Metametrix for chemical exposure... It has proven extremely difficult to find medical care providers who are willing to see patients who have been impacted by the oil spill due to the tremendous pressure exerted against hospitals, clinics, and physicians by BP. In numerous cases BP has provided financial payments to institutions and individuals in exchange for them agreeing not to allow their physicians or staff to see, advise, or treat anyone sickened as a result of the well blowout."

CDC survey of Gulf residents finds 50% of households experiencing respiratory issues within the PAST 30 DAYS — Feds suggest to “focus on mental health

Florida Oil Spill Law

After oil spill, depression and stress levels rise in coastal Alabama, Press-Register, September 27, 2010:

Excerpts

An emergency survey* conducted door-to-door in coastal Alabama confirmed elevated levels of depression and stress following the oil spill and also detected possible effects, such as respiratory ailments…

• At least half of the households queried in both counties had at least one member experiencing respiratory issues within the past 30 days. …
• Respondents were encountering more physically or mentally unhealthy days than people in earlier statewide surveys.
• “The increased prevalence of negative quality-of-life indicators, depressive symptoms and symptoms of anxiety,” according to the CDC report, “suggest that resources should focus on mental health intervention and follow-up surveillance.”

* The survey, by the Centers for Disease Control’s national Center for Environmental Health, is based on responses from 128 households in south Mobile County and 168 in south Baldwin, both in Alabama.

Russian Scientist: Oil is Pouring into the Gulf from 18 Different Places

Anatoly Sagalevich has added his voice to the latest controversy over the BP ecological catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. This expert from the Russian Academy of Science was called to the Gulf by BP shortly after the Deepwater Horizon rig collapsed. And what he has to say is not very reassuring.

Dr. Sagalevich’s report was drawn up and presented to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. In this report, the investigator from the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology and the Russian Academy of Science has stated that the ocean floor has been irreparably damaged and that the planet must prepare for an ecological disaster “beyond all understanding”.

The reason why Dr. Sagalevich was called by BP is because he is the leading world expert in deepwater exploration, having been awarded the order of Lenin for the creation of the submersibles MIR-1 and MIR-2, which are capable of diving to a depth of 6 km, the deepest-reaching submarines in the world.

For Dr. Sagalevich, the oil pouring into the Gulf is not just coming from one source, as the media have been claiming, but fro 18 different places. According to the report, the Russian scientists called by the USA are forbidden to divulge their findings to the media – yet another source backing up the claim that there is a media blackout.

According to a report in Komsomolskaya Pravda, Russian experts are pressing the Americans to use a nuclear explosion to extinguish the well, before it destroys the Atlantic Ocean. The USSR apparently used nuclear explosions five times (being successful on four of these occasions) to extinguish problematic oil and gas deposits between 1966 and 1981.

For Dr. Sagalevich, the problem facing the Obama administration as regards using a nuclear explosion to seal the well has more to do with the effects on the continued exploration of oil in the Gulf of Mexico than the environmental impact of the Deepwater disaster.

Russian scientists are also warning against the use of the poisonous dispersing agents by BP against the oil, due to the fact that this falls elsewhere as acid rain and is destroying all the plant life it comes into contact with.

Source and original article:

http://a7.com.mx/reportajes/3867-graves-consecuencias-del-derrame-de-la-bp.html

Jaws 6: The Oil

"Did you go swimming?"

Oil Rain in Louisiana

BP Had the Technology to Accurately Measure the Amount of Oil Leaking in Gulf 2 Years Ago

Washington's Blog

Congressman Markey - who chairs the select committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming and the Energy and Environment subcommittee - alleges:

What’s clear is that BP has had an interest in low-balling the size of their accident, since every barrel spilled increases how much they could be fined by the government.

Markey and many others point to the fact that BP's fines under the Clean Water Act are based on how many barrels of oil have spilled.

It is therefore not very surprising that BP is pretending that it is difficult to measure the amount of oil spilling into the Gulf.

But a commenter at the Oil Drum points out that BP had the technology to accurately measure the amount of oil spilling into the Gulf - without damaging any equipment - 2 years ago (edited for readability):

Would it surprise anyone to know that BP had already developed the technology to accurately measure troublesome oil and gas flow mixtures at the well head two years ago? It can be done remotely and continuously, at up to 10,000 feet, with a clamp-on, calibration free, sonar flow meter, or that the company that sells and installs them is presenting at petroleum conventions in Calgary and Newfoundland this summer?

The reason BP does not want the true flow known, is that it would require them to pay the "legitimate" fines and royalties they owe on what is extracted, regardless of whether it is ever recovered. As of mid-June their violations of the Clean Water Act alone are around $10B.

The reason no other oil driller wants it known, is that they may own the next blowout and will also want to conceal their true obligations.

Here's Expro Meters' product video.

And here's a description of Expro Meters' product from ScandOil.com:

Expro’s latest deepwater intervention technology will be showcased at both events. Expro’s AX-S system will break new ground in subsea well intervention when it comes to the market.

AX-S™ (pronounced ‘access’) brings cost-effective, riser-less intervention to deepwater wells (up to 10,000ft of water). Expro’s goal is to deliver a full range of wireline intervention services in deepwater wells at substantially less than the cost of using a rig.

***

Expro Meters offers wellhead surveillance on demand, utilizing a range of clamp-on sonar-based metering technology. Expro offers round-the-clock, 24/7 well surveillance, on any well type or location. Expro’s meters are clamp-on, non intrusive, easily installed and applied without production shutdown, providing operators with a permanent solution to their wellhead production surveillance needs.

Expro Meters are also available on demand to provide quick and easy well testing services through our portable clamp-on meters – anywhere in the world.

And the following document - on BP's own website - contradicts everything they have said about not being able to accurately measure the rate of their Gulf oil leak (excerpt from p. 5 of BP's own Frontiers publication, August, 2008):

BP has identified that by combining sonar flow measurement with additional measured parameters, such as pressure drop in a flow line, both the liquid rate and the gas rate on a wet gas flow line can be determined. BP has proven this additional breakthrough in practice and expects to deploy the technique in the field by the end of this year.

It appears that measuring hydrocarbon flows which contain small but troublesome percentages of liquids or gas may be less problematic in the future thanks to BP's creative vision for sonar flow measurement.

Thursday, June 17, 2010 BP Tells Cleanup Workers They'll Be Fired If They Wear Respirators

Washington's Blog

BP has been telling cleanup workers that they don't need to wear respirators or other protective gear.

As Jerrold Nadler, the New York congressman whose district includes the World Trade Center, said today:

We're repeating the same catastrophe in the Gulf. You see pictures of people wearing regular clothes who are wading in and scooping oil off the water. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people, are going to get sick unnecessarily.

More egregious still, sources on the ground say that BP is telling cleanup workers that they will be fired if they wear respirators:



Why?

Because - as part of their PR campaign - BP is doing everything it can to prevent dramatic pictures or headlines regarding the oil spill.

For example, BP has been keeping reporters out of areas hardest hit by the oil (and see this, this, this and this) and threatening to arrest them if they try to take pictures, hiding dead birds and other sealife, and using dispersants to break up the thick plumes of oil. Indeed, attorney and environmental advocate Monique Harden says that BP is "running the Gulf region like a prison warden".

How Much Oil Is Leaking Into the Gulf of Mexico?

BP Using Mercenaries To Prevent Journalists From Talking To Workers

Spinning the Barrel

Center for Media and Democracy

BP and the media express quantities of oil gushing from BP's leak in the Gulf in different ways. The amount of oil coming out of the leak is most frequently expressed in barrels, but how much is that? Can people really relate to a barrel as a quantity? After all, we buy staples like gasoline, milk, and water by the gallon. To make it even more complicated for the public to understand the quantities being discussed, the amount of liquid in a barrel varies with what is being measured. Barrels of chemicals or food, for example, contain 55 gallons. A whiskey barrel is 40 gallons; a barrel of beer contains 36 gallons; a barrel of ale contains 34 gallons. (And the latter two are imperial gallons, which are two-tenths less than an American gallon.) All these variations in the barrel as a quantity of measure only further confuse the concept of what a barrel of oil looks like. Moreover, since oil companies started shipping oil in tankers they rarely actually ship oil in barrels anymore, so the barrel as a measurement has less practical use.

Do the Math, Check Twice for Spin

When oil is coming out of the leak, BP tends to express the quantity in barrels, but when the company talks about how much oil it is collecting or incinerating, it will report the quantity in gallons. The day BP began burning siphoned oil from the ruptured well, for example, they reported that by noon that day they had burned 52,500 gallons of oil. It sounds like a significant amount, but that's just 1,250 barrels -- a microscopic amount compared to what is gushing from the blowout each day.

In any case, when reading or hearing news about the Gulf oil disaster, pay attention to how quantities are expressed. One barrel of crude oil equals 42 U.S. gallons, so multiply barrels by 42 to get the quantity being quoted in more familiar gallons. You may have to do some math to better interpret the quantities being discussed.

Oil Leaks From Gulf Seabed Cracks Around BP's Well Site?

Antemedius.com

British Petroleum (BP) has a collection of 'bots' or ROV's, remotely operated vehicles, tethered underwater robots operating in the Gulf of Mexico near the blown out Macondo Well site, while they attempt to either plug the leak or at least find ways to recover and siphon off the leaking oil.

Sitting on top of the well pipe projecting from the seabed is the BOP, or Blow Out Preventer, the large steel 450 ton apparatus that you may have seen in various photographs and videos from BP's Live Feed as they recently cut off the top of the riser pipe that ran from the BOP to the Deepwater Horizon platform before it burned and sank.

There has been much speculation lately that the well bore is damaged below the seabed and that oil is leaking out of the well into the seabed underneath and around the BOP.

Keeping in mind that the BOP weighs 450 tons it would seem that if the seabed is becoming saturated with oil leaking through it that is only a question of time before the seabed will no longer have the structural strength to support the weight of the BOP and that it could fall off the top of the well pipe it is sitting on, releasing an uncontrolled and uncontrollable flow of oil into the gulf with no way of plugging or stopping it.

BP denies that oil or gas are leaking from cracks in the sea floor on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.

This video was recorded from the Viking Poseidon ROV 1 on June 13th, 2010, and appears to show bursts of oil leaking from cracks in the seabed.

Secret highly toxic ingredients of chemical dispersant Corexit finally revealed!

Natural News

By Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor

Toxic Corexit dispersant chemicals remained secret as feds colluded with Big Business

(NaturalNews) After weeks of silence on the issue, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finally decided to go public with the list of ingredients used to manufacture Corexit, the chemical dispersant used by BP in the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster. There are two things about this announcement that deserve our attention: First, the ingredients that have been disclosed are extremely toxic, and second, why did the EPA protect the oil industry’s “trade secrets” for so long by refusing to disclose these ingredients until now?

As reported in the New York Times, Brian Turnbaugh, a policy analyst at OMB Watch said, “EPA had the authority to act all along; its decision to now disclose the ingredients demonstrates this. Yet it took a public outcry and weeks of complaints for the agency to act and place the public’s interest ahead of corporate interests.”

On the toxicity question, you could hardly find a more dangerous combination of poisons to dump into the Gulf of Mexico than what has been revealed in Corexit. The Corexit 9527 product has been designated a “chronic and acute health hazard” by the EPA. It is made with 2-butoxyethanol, a highly toxic chemical that has long been linked to the health problems of cleanup crews who worked on the Exxon Valdez spill.

A newer Corexit recipe dubbed the “9500 formula” contains dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate, a detergent chemical that’s also found in laxatives. What do you suppose happens to the marine ecosystem when fish and sea turtles ingest this chemical through their gills and skin? And just as importantly, what do you think happens to the human beings who are working around this chemical, breathing in its fumes and touching it with their skin?

The answers are currently unknown, which is exactly why it is so inexcusable that Nalco and the oil industry giants would for so long refuse to disclose the chemical ingredients they’re dumping into the Gulf of Mexico in huge quantities (over a million gallons dumped into the ocean to date).

But it gets even more interesting when you look at just how widespread this “chemical secrecy” is across Big Business in the USA… and how the U.S. government more often than not conspires with industry to keep these chemicals a secret.

It’s time to end chemical trade secrets
Armed with the accomplices in the FDA, EPA, FTC and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, powerful corporations have been keeping secrets from us all. It’s not just the toxic chemicals in Corexit, either: Large manufacturers of consumers products — such as Unilever, Proctor & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson — routinely use toxic chemical ingredients in their products — ingredients which are usually kept secret from the public.

Similarly, virtually every perfume, cologne and fragrance product on the market is made with cancer-causing chemicals that their manufacturers refuse to disclose, claiming their formulas are “trade secrets.”

Throughout Big Business in America, the toxic chemicals used in everyday products such as household cleaners, cosmetics and yard care remain a dangerous secret, and the U.S. government actually colludes with industry to keep these chemical ingredients a secret by, for example, refusing to require full disclosure of ingredients for personal care products. The FDA offers us virtually no enforcement in this area, depending almost entirely on companies to declare their own chemicals are safe rather than requiring actual safety testing to be conducted.

This is why the following statement is frightening yet true: What BP is doing to the Gulf of Mexico, companies like Proctor & Gamble are doing to the entire population. We are all being mass poisoned by the toxic chemicals in personal care products, foods, medicines, fragrance products and other concoctions created by powerful corporations that use toxic chemicals throughout their product lines… but who refuse to disclose those ingredients in the public.

Thanks to the widespread use of secret chemicals in foods, medicines and personal care products, we are awash in synthetic toxic chemicals that have already reached the shores of public health. The rates of cancer, Alzheimer’s, diabetes and infertility that we’re seeing right now are a reflection of the devastating health cost associated with ongoing the ongoing chemical contamination of our population. Even public water fluoridation policies are a kind of “water contamination disaster” where chemicals from an undisclosed source are dumped into the water supply (on purpose, no less!).

What’s doubly disturbing about all this is that many of the chemicals used in foods, medicines, household cleaners and personal care products end up in the Gulf of Mexico as well because they get flushed down stream. So now the Gulf isn’t just polluted with crude oil and dispersant chemicals; it’s also heavily contaminated with all the chemical runoff from the products made by large corporations that refuse to disclose the actual chemical ingredients, claiming they’re trade secrets.

It’s time to end the chemical secrecy
As this Gulf of Mexico oil disaster clearly demonstrates, it’s time to end the chemical secrecy maintained by Big Business. We must demand that all ingredients be fully disclosed for all products so that the curtain of chemical secrecy is lifted once a for all.

Neither oil companies nor consumer product companies should be able to hide behind the excuse of “trade secrets” to avoid disclosing the actual chemicals contained in the products they sell. As consumers, we must demand chemical transparency from these companies or refuse to buy their products.

Legislatively, we must demand new laws that require full disclosure on all consumer products so that ordinary people can see what’s contained in the products they buy.

In a world where one person’s chemical runoff impacts every other person, there is no justification for chemical secrecy. We all have the right to know what we’re putting on (or in) our bodies, and if companies refuse to be honest with us, we should boycott their products and publicly shame them for engaging in deceptive, secretive behavior.

Because the truth is that consumer product companies don’t dare want you to know what’s actually found in their products. And that’s because most of their products are made with poison. If the average perfume product listed its chemical ingredients on the label, for example, product sales would plummet as consumers realized just how many of those ingredients are linked to cancer and liver disorders.

Big Business wants us all to remain ignorant… blinded to the truth of what poisons they’re slathering on our skin or dripping down our throats. But it’s time to halt this dark era of chemical secrets in our modern world. It’s time to demand transparency, clean up our waterways and stop poisoning ourselves and our planet.