https://www.nola.com/news/environment/article_a2c44db0-2d90-11ea-ac0d-738224b1b679.html
Nine years of research on BP spill, dispersants documents potential
human health, mental health effects
Mark Schleifstein
Published Jan 2, 2020
Nearly a decade of BP-funded research has uncovered a laundry list of
potential health effects resulting from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill,
including possible links between obesity and dispersants used to break
up the oil; the discovery of dangerous bacteria in tar balls still
washing up on Gulf beaches; and a new understanding of the links between
disasters and the mental health problems of both fishers and oilfield
workers.
The research is summarized in a review article published in the American
Geophysical Union’s GeoHealth journal in October, authored by
researchers at the College of Charleston, the University of Maryland,
and Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health.
The article describes the findings of more than 32 peer-reviewed
scientific papers. Those papers outline the results of research paid for
with grants from the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative, created in May
2010 to dole out $500 million in BP settlement money over 10 years.
The GOMRI board includes 10 scientists appointed by BP and two each
appointed by governors of five affected states.
BP appointed Rita Colwell, a professor of cell biology and molecular
genetics at the University of Maryland and former director of the
National Science Foundation, as the board’s chair. The company gave
Colwell the authority to name the rest of the BP representatives to the
board, none of whom were recommended to her by the company.
While GOMRI funded 1,747 peer-reviewed research papers that had been
published by September, just 32, or 3%, focused on human health effects,
according to the paper, which attempts to assess all 32 of them. The
paper noted that just 1% of peer-reviewed papers on oil spills prior to
the BP incident dealt with health issues.
Moreover, the GOMRI studies do not represent the full extent of the
research conducted in the aftermath of the spill. Independent studies
also have been funded by the National Academies of Science, the National
Science Foundation, state science research centers funded with money
from BP civil and criminal fines, and a variety of federal and state
agencies in support of the federally required Natural Resource Damage
Assessment.
Dispersant effects
A number of the research projects focused on the unprecedented,
widespread use of dispersants to break up the BP oil into tiny droplets
that could more easily dissolve or be eaten by bacteria in the weeks and
months after the April 20, 2010, fire and explosion.
A federal judge determined that the accident resulted in 3.2 million
barrels of oil being released into the Gulf of Mexico over 87 days. More
than 1.8 million gallons of two types of Corexit dispersant were used,
including the unprecedented spraying of 770,000 gallons into the oil as
it was being released from the wellhead more than a mile below the
water’s surface. The rest was sprayed from airplanes onto the oil at the
surface.
Two 2016 papers focused on a key constituent of Corexit dispersants —
dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate, or DOSS — and concluded that it was what
enabled the combination of Corexit and oil from the well to activate a
human gene linked to obesity. In one of the studies, the material was
tested on mice and was found to cause an increase in fatty tissues in
its liver.
One of those papers pointed out that DOSS and Span 80, another potential
obesity-causing constituent of the dispersant, are also used as food
additives, “and point to the need to understand (their) possible human
health effects.”
The report also pointed to other studies of the effects of dispersants.
Some indicated that, while use of the chemical on oil on the water
surface might reduce the cancer risk from exposure to benzene, a
constituent of oil, it also increased the creation of tiny particles
that rose into the air, increasing the threat of lung disease in cleanup
workers.
Oil contamination effects
Studies focusing on the effects of contamination by oil included several
focusing on the link between the oil spill and so-called “harmful algae
blooms,” especially those resulting from the dramatic growth of the
Florida red tide organism, Karenia brevis.
The oil acts like fertilizer or food for harmful algae, which release
toxic substances in the air that can be poisonous to both wildlife and
humans. The researchers concluded that a combination of overfishing and
oil spills, plus reduced zooplankton and phytoplankton populations —
tiny animals and plants that live in near-surface ocean waters — were
together responsible for 15 percent of asthma events worldwide in 2004.
Those events affected as many as 45 million people and may have been
responsible for 33,000 deaths.
Their research also found the aerosol material released by harmful
blooms can also carry methyl mercury and other contaminants, which could
explain some mercury poisoning cases among humans that are believed to
be linked to mercury contamination of fish.
Studies in the early years after the BP spill mostly showed that the
closures to commercial and recreational fishing for up to a year of
88,552 square miles of Gulf waters blocked the spread of oil
contaminants into the marketplace. One study looked at 278 seafood
samples of fish, shrimp, crab and oysters collected weekly from May
through October of 2010, and then monthly through August 2011. It found
that levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, an oil
constituent, were no different from those seen in an earlier 10-year
study of seafood.
“The PAH levels in (Gulf) seafood were similar to levels found in
grocery store and restaurant-grade seafood and far below public health
levels of concern established jointly by NOAA, the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration, and Gulf Coast states," said the GeoHealth study review
article.
Another study found that measurements of potentially harmful oil
components in water along the coast “were at pre-spill levels soon after
the spill ended,” although there were some locations where remaining oil
could still pose problems. That study also pointed out that there’s
still concern that existing seafood safety limits for oil compounds
might not provide enough protection to at-risk parts of the population,
including pregnant women, children, and members of ethnic groups that
tend to consume a lot of seafood, including Vietnamese-American fishers.
Several studies also looked into the potential that a specific harmful
family of bacteria pathogens, Vibrio, might take advantage of the spill
and pose a greater threat to human health. One study found no evidence
that the spill — and specifically, the PAHs found in BP oil — resulted
in unusual blooms of Vibrio parahaemolyticus, which causes
gastrointestinal illnesses.
But another study found that weathered oil that washed up on Mississippi
and Alabama beaches and formed tar balls contained significantly higher
levels of Vibrio vulnificus, a bacteria strain that can cause
life-threatening wound infections or infections of the blood. The study
found Vibrio in the BP tar balls at levels 10 times higher than found in
sand, and up to 100 times higher than found in seawater.
Mental health effects
A number of studies addressed mental health and social issues faced by
residents and workers either directly exposed to oil, or impacted by the
spill's economic side effects, such as a ban on fishing and a federal
moratorium on drilling operations.
One study compared the mental health issues experienced by people living
in parishes considered to be “highly religious,” and those in
communities where religion was not considered as important, and found
little difference between the two. But it also found that in the highly
religious communities, those who were less religious were also more
likely to have depression or other mental health issues, likely because
of less access to community assistance provided by churches.
One study of the blame and trust that those exposed to oil had in
institutions — the BP company, the federal government and state
governments — noted that respondents expressed high levels of distrust
during the first year after the spill for both BP and the federal
government. But they expressed a significantly lower level of distrust
for state officials. BP was blamed for the accident and spill by 75
percent of those surveyed, compared to 50 percent for the federal
government and only 20 percent for state governments.
Over three years of surveying, the number of respondents placing blame
didn't change for BP and the federal government, but rose to 32 percent
for state governments.
The review article also pointed out that there are still a number of
GOMRI research projects underway, including two examining the effects of
dispersants on human lungs.
The open access article, "Oil Spills and Human Health: Contributions of
the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative" is available for free at the
GeoHealth website.
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