'Gulf Coast Syndrome'

[robdogbucky]

A year after the BP disaster, some Southerners say they're coming down with mysterious and frightening illnesses
by Alex Woodward

"...A Swiss TV crew asks me why U.S. media aren't talking about this. It's a good question.

In the wake of the BP oil disaster, thousands of Gulf cleanup workers and residents have reported illnesses, with symptoms as tame as headaches or as violent as bloody stools and seizures. Nonprofit groups and teams of scientists are looking for answers using blood tests, surveys, maps, and soil and seafood samples.

The Louisiana Bucket Brigade (LABB), a nonprofit environmental group, recently completed its survey of coastal Louisiana residents and found a dire need for medical attention. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) began its "Gulf Long-Term Follow-Up Study for Oil Spill Clean-Up Workers and Volunteers" (GuLF Study) to follow the health of 55,000 cleanup crew members over 10 years. It's the largest study to monitor the disaster, but it won't be treating its participants. GuLF Study leader Dr. Dale Sandler says the illnesses "need to be taken seriously."

"People are sick," she says.

So where is the help?

http://www.csindy.com/colorado/gulf-coast-syndrome/Content?oid=2171419



Where indeed.


rdb

[blindpig]

1. Hey, those are'externals', not BP's problem.

Ain't Capitalism grand?

[AlabamaLibrul]

2. I haven't been sick in a while, after reporting some respiratory issues, headaches

after exposure to quite a bit of the stuff.

I wouldn't mind getting some bloodwork done or something, see where I stand.

[robdogbucky]

3. More from the article.....

"This is the best-hidden secret perhaps in the history of our nation."

Dr. Mike Robichaux speaks into a microphone while standing on a truck bed in the shade of a massive tree in his yard in Raceland, La. He's wearing a blue polo shirt and jeans, and his white-gray hair is parted neatly. The former state senator, known affectionately as Dr. Mike, is an ear, nose and throat specialist in Lafourche Parish and self-described "too easygoing of a guy." But today, he's pissed.

"Nobody is fussing about this," he says.

"...My little girls now have more toxins in their blood than I have. That hurts more. I blame myself," he says, fighting back tears. "I let them go and swim and play in the beach, but at the same time those sons of bitches said it was safe..."

...Matherne was an engineer on a support boat near the Deepwater rig when it exploded, and says crews sprayed dispersants directly on top of him. Matherne wasn't provided a respirator. Since May 30, 2010, he's suffered paralysis, impaired vision and severe headaches, and he frequently coughs up blood. "I don't know why things are happening like this," he says through tears in a YouTube video dated March 25. "But it seems to get worse and worse every day. ... It's driving me crazy. ... I laid in bed last night and prayed that God would just let me die, you know. I'm tired of suffering, you know. I'm tired of watching my family suffer..."

http://www.csindy.com/colorado/gulf-coast-syndrome/Content?oid=2171419

[PCIntern]

4. K and R and I am SHOCKED that this happened...I gotta sit down...

imagine: petroleum and chemicals designed to 'neutralize' it are harmful to animal life. Whoa Nellie! Somebody better alert someone...who'd a thunk THAT!!?

:sarcasm: of course...

it's amazing that it took THIS long for stories like this to surface...or surfactant...

[Odin2005]

5. K&R