Flashback:
– Halliburton To Plead Guilty To Destroying Gulf Evidence And To Pay Maximum Fine Of $200,000
– Halliburton Admits It Destroyed Gulf Spill Evidence, … Pays 0.0007% Of Revenue Fine
– BP Oil Spill: NASA Report Confirms Toxic Dispersants DID Rain Down On Gulf Coast
– Gulf: 6 Dangerous Chemicals Found In Blood Tests By 3 Separate Labs (Video)
– Louisiana Senator Blasts President Obama About COREXIT Poisoning of the Gulf
– The Perfect Genetic Storm: Synthetic DNA and the Gulf Blue Plague (And A Shocking Gulf Update)
– Jesse Ventura Conspiracy Theory: ‘Gulf Coast Oil Spill’ (Full Length Video)
More shocking information down below.
National and State Parks along the Gulf Coast have posted health warnings along the coast [Erika Blumenfeld/AJE]
– Gulf spill sickness wrecking lives (Al Jazeera, Jan 9, 2014):
Nearly a year after the oil disaster began, Gulf Coast residents are sick, and dying from BP’s toxic chemicals.
“I have critically high levels of chemicals in my body,” 33-year-old Steven Aguinaga of Hazlehurst, Mississippi told Al Jazeera. “Yesterday I went to see another doctor to get my blood test results and the nurse said she didn’t know how I even got there.”
Aguinaga and his close friend Merrick Vallian went swimming at Fort Walton Beach, Florida, in July 2010.
“I swam underwater, then found I had orange slick stuff all over me,” Aguinaga said. “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. I’ve been extremely sick ever since.”
BP’s oil disaster last summer gushed at least 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, causing the largest accidental marine oil spill in history – and the largest environmental disaster in US history. Compounding the problem, BP has admitted to using at least 1.9 million gallons toxic dispersants, including one chemical that has been banned in the UK.
According to chemist Bob Naman, these chemicals create an even more toxic substance when mixed with crude oil. Naman, who works at the Analytical Chemical Testing Lab in Mobile, Alabama, has been carrying out studies to search for the chemical markers of the dispersants BP used to both sink and break up its oil.
Poly-aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from this toxic mix are making people sick, Naman said. PAHs contain compounds that have been identified as carcinogenic, mutagenic, and teratogenic.
“The dispersants are being added to the water and are causing chemical compounds to become water soluble, which is then given off into the air, so it is coming down as rain, in addition to being in the water and beaches of these areas of the Gulf,” Naman told Al Jazeera.
“I’m scared of what I’m finding. These cyclic compounds intermingle with the Corexit [dispersants] and generate other cyclic compounds that aren’t good. Many have double bonds, and many are on the EPA’s danger list. 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.
“Aside from some gloves, BP provided no personal protection for them. He worked for them for two weeks and then died on August 23. He had just got his first paycheck, and it was in his wallet, uncashed, when he died.”
National health crisis
Many of the chemicals present in the oil and dispersants are known to cause headaches, nausea, vomiting, kidney damage, altered renal function, and irritation of the digestive tract. They have also caused lung damage, burning pain in the nose and throat, coughing, pulmonary edema, cancer, lack of muscle coordination, dizziness, confusion, irritation of the skin, eyes, nose, and throat, difficulty breathing, delayed reaction time and memory difficulties.
Further health problems include stomach discomfort, liver and kidney damage, unconsciousness, tiredness/lethargy, irritation of the upper respiratory tract, hematological disorders, and death. Pathways of exposure to the chemicals are inhalation, ingestion, skin, and eye contact.
Al Jazeera has talked with scores of sick people across the Gulf Coast who attribute their illnesses to chemicals from BP’s oil disaster.
Paul Doom, 22, from Navarre, Florida, was training in preparation to join the US Marines, until he became extremely ill from swimming in the Gulf of Mexico.
“I stopped swimming in July because I started having severe headaches that wouldn’t go away,” Doom told Al Jazeera. “But each time I went to the doctor they dismissed it.”
In October, Doom began to have internal bleeding, but this too was dismissed by doctors. In November, when it worsened, he was given pain medications in the Emergency Room and was told it would pass. Less then three weeks after that, Doom collapsed with a seizure.
“Since then, I’ve had two blood tests for Volatile Organic Compounds [VOC’s] which are in BP’s oil and dispersants, and they both came back with alarmingly high levels,” he said.
Since the onset of his symptoms, Doom has been dealing with ongoing internal bleeding, nose bleeds, bleeding from his ears, blood in his stool, headaches, severe diarrhea, two to five seizures per day, paralysis in his left leg and arm, and failing vision.
“A toxicologist that interpreted my blood VOC results told me they didn’t know how I was alive,” Doom explained. “My Hexane was off the charts, and I have 2 and 3 Methylpentane, Iso-octane, Ethylbenze, and mp-Xylene.”
Wilma Subra, a MacArthur Fellow and chemist in Louisiana, has been testing the blood of BP cleanup workers and residents in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. Subra tested Doom’s blood and found high amounts of several VOC’s.
“Ethylbenzene, mp-Xylene and Hexane are volatile organic chemicals that are present in the BP crude oil,” Subra told Al Jazeera. “We’re finding these in excess of the 95th percentile, which is the average for the entire nation. Sometimes we’re finding amounts 5 to 10 times in excess of the 95th percentile.”
Subra explained that there has been long enough exposure so as to create chronic impacts, that include “Liver damage, kidney damage, and damage to the nervous system. So the presence of these chemicals in the blood indicates exposure.”
Testing by Subra has also revealed the chemicals are present “in coastal soil sediment, wetlands, and in crab, oyster and mussel tissues.”
Staggering toll
Since January, at least 67 dead dolphins have washed ashore along the Gulf Coast, an event the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared as “an unusual mortality event”. In the whole of 2010, 89 dolphin deaths were reported for the same area.
In January, a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute chemist and colleagues reported that the toxic chemical dispersants BP used to sink its crude oil remained in the deep ocean in an oil and gas-laden plume that had still not degraded.
Also in January, Louisiana Senator AG Crowe wrote a letter to President Barack Obama expressing his deep concern about the toxic dispersants BP used, and according to Senator Crowe, continues to use along the Gulf Coast.
“Mr President, my concern is that this toxic and damaging chemical is still being used and it will compound the long-term damage to our state, our citizens, our eco-system, our economy, our seafood industry, our wildlife and our culture,” the letter read.
“We will not be fooled in to believing that the oil and the toxins are gone. Because the toxic dispersants have been, and are still being used today, the oil is being forced downward in to the water columns and then carried endlessly around and about by the Gulf currents adversely affecting our environment.”
Subra, the MacArthur Fellow, is alarmed by what she is finding in the people whose blood she is testing.
“Severe symptoms, lots of respiratory and cardiovascular problems, and skin lesions,” she explained. “There is a lot of internal bleeding, and the chemicals cause this by disrupting the integrity of the red blood cells.”
Subra said: “We’re seeing the chemicals in different classes of people. Cleanup workers employed by BP, clean-up workers no longer employed, and we’re seeing it in community members who come in contact with the crude by fishing or recreating in the Gulf.”
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’s all fixed and let’s move on, when it’s not. The crude oil is continuing to come on shore in tar mats, balls, and strings.”
Subra continued: “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.”
A bunch of guinea pigs
Jo Billups is an environmental activist who has taken it upon herself to assist in the funding, along with her friend Michelle Nix, in the blood testing being carried out by Subra.
Working with the Louisiana Environmental Action Network and several doctors along the Gulf Coast, Billups and Nix have been holding workshops and helping sick people get their blood tested and find medical assistance.
“We have sick people from Apalachicola, Florida, to Grand Isle, Louisiana, and it’s not stopping and that’s what’s disturbing,” Billups said. “The levels we are seeing are not dropping, and we’re seeing new chemicals now. We gave some of our blood test results to [EPA head] Lisa Jackson. They know what is going on, and they are not doing anything about it.”
“The saddest part is the children,” Billups added. “We’re seeing young children with extremely high levels of chemicals. We’re altering our DNA and our bodies forever, We’re a bunch of guinea pigs.”
Jennifer Rexford, from Panama City, Florida, was an oil clean-up worker for BP.
“We were taken to clean up oil and tar balls with inadequate equipment,” Rexford told Al Jazeera. “We regularly got oil all over us.”
Rexford now has a staph infection that covers much of her body that she attributes to the chemicals in BP’s oil she was cleaning up.
“Everyone I know of that I worked with are now having kidney problems, along with lots of other illnesses,” Rexford, who has been to the hospital four times trying to find a solution to her infection, said. “My neighbor has a rash all over her body, and another clean-up worker I know found a lump in her breast a month ago. So when I started calling my co-workers, I realized that we’re all sick.”
“I have documentation and images showing lesions in my brain,” Paul Doom said. “Lesions that are the same as lesions on the brains of marine life from the Exxon Valdez spill from marine necropsies. This is a life and death situation and a race against time.”
Doom said the water and food along the Gulf Coast are not safe, and he is angry at the Obama administration.
“I would ask them why have they allowed this to happen,” he said, “How can you live with yourself knowing you allowed this to happen and continue?”
Aguinaga feels betrayed as well.
“I feel stabbed in the back by my own country,” he said, “I feel we are being dictated to by a foreign power. Maybe our president is not strong enough to stand up against them. I know money buys people, but they couldn’t offer me enough money for the loss of my friend, and the stuff we’re going through.”
Aguinaga’s prognosis for the future of Gulf Coast residents?
“We’re all lab rats and we didn’t even know it. We’re waiting to see how it’s going to turn out.”
More shocking information:
– The Perfect Genetic Storm: Synthetic DNA and the Gulf Blue Plague (And A Shocking Gulf Update)
– Naval Research Laboratory Charts Show Damaged Loop Current
– 30 Facts – The Rothschild Bankers Planned The Gulf Disaster
– Jesse Ventura Conspiracy Theory: ‘Gulf Coast Oil Spill’
– The Gulf of Mexico: ‘Just Dead, Everything’s Dead’
– BP Admits Using Synthetic Microbes in Gulf
– BP oil spill incident commander dies in small plane crash
– BP Victims Won’t Be Allowed to Sue If They Accept Compensation
– White House Probe Clears BP Over Oil Spill Disaster
– Multiple Independent Lab Tests Confirm Oil In Gulf Shrimp
– Scientist John Hutchison Uses Frequency Healing to Restore The Gulf After BP Oil Spill
– Marine Toxicologist Dr. Riki Ott: ‘People Now Dropping Dead’ In the Gulf
– US Presidential Panel: Halliburton Knew Cement Mixed For BP Blowout Well Was Unstable
– Massive Stretches of Weathered Oil Found in Gulf of Mexico
– Scientists Found 40-Fold Increase In Carcinogenic Compounds In Gulf
– Blood Tests on Gulf Residents Show Benzene And Other Hydrocarbons
– Scientist Rick Steiner Got Gulf Disaster Right From The Beginning, Warns Crisis Is Far From Over
– FDA admits NOT testing for MERCURY, ARSENIC, or any other TOXIC HEAVY METALS in Sea Food
– Gulf claims chief Ken Feinberg says BP no-sue rule was his idea, takes control of BP’s $20bn fund
– Matt Simmons Dies In An ‘Accidental Drowning’ At His Home
– Matthew Simmons: ‘We’ve Now Killed The Gulf Of Mexico’ (Flashback)
– Gulf Oil Blowout: Matt Simmons Was Right!
– Loop Current in the Gulf of Mexico Has Stalled From BP Oil Disaster! (!)
– Scientists: Evidence Of Gulf Oil And Dispersant Mix Making Its Way Into The Foodchain
– The Growing Health Crisis in the Gulf of Mexico:
Corexit also contain arsenic, cadmium, chromium, mercury, cyanide, and other heavy metals. Dispersing oil with it increases toxicity 11-fold ….
People who work near it are hemorrhaging internally. And that’s what dispersants are supposed to do.EPA now is taking the position that they really don’t know how dangerous it is, even though if you read the label, it tells you how dangerous it is. And, for example, in the Exxon Valdez case, people who worked with dispersants, most of them are dead now. The average death age is around fifty. It’s very dangerous, and it’s an economic-it’s an economic protector of BP, not an environmental protector of the public.
– Gulf of Mexico BP Oil Rig Blast: Safety Alarm Was Off
– And Now: BP Plans Deep-Water Drilling Off Libya
– Rachel Maddow: The Gulf Of Mexico Déjà Vu (Must See!)
– Matt Simmons: BP Cap Is A Fraud – ‘It’s The Biggest Cover-Up We have Ever Seen’
– Gulf Of Mexico Water Sample EXPLODES! Other Samples Prove To Be Toxic
– BP Oil Blowout: All States Along Gulf Of Mexico Affected By Slick
– U.S. Senate Traitors Block Investigative Power for Oil Spill Commission
– And Now: BP admits failing to use industry risk test at any of its deepwater wells in the US
– CNN: 1st Amendment, Free Press Suspended Near Gulf Disaster Area
– Gulf of Mexico Disaster: BP Slick Covers Dolphins and Whales
– BP burns rare sea turtles alive, blocks efforts to save them
– Matt Simmons: ‘We’re going to have to evacuate the gulf states.’
– US Scientist: Methane In Gulf ‘Astonishingly High’, As Much As 1 Million Times The Normal Level
– BP Plans To Dump All North Sea Assets In Dramatic Attempt To Cut Costs
– BP Blocking Media Access To Workers (Video)
– BP Official Admits to Damage BENEATH THE SEA FLOOR
– BP Buys Search Term ‘Oil Spill’ From Google
– BP CEO Tony Hayward sold £1.4 million of his shares weeks before Gulf blowout
– Goldman Sachs Sold 44% Of Its BP Stock 3 Weeks Before Gulf Blowout
– Feds and BP Withheld Videos Showing Massive Scope of Oil Spill
– Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Solution Restores Environment in Just Six Weeks
– BP’s ‘brilliant’ CEO Tony Hayward clashes with scientists over deep sea oil pollution
– BP’s top kill effort fails to plug Gulf oil leak
– Gulf of Mexico Oil Apocalypse Creates Underwater Nightmare
– Gulf of Mexico clean-up boats recalled after crews suffer health problems
– SPECIAL REPORT: Civil fine in Gulf spill could be $4,300 a barrel
– Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Health Hazards
– Fishermen get severly ill from clean-up work in Gulf
– NASA Images Show Oil Entering Loop Current
– New NASA Image of Gulf Oil Moving Towards Atlantic Ocean
– Worry That Gulf Oil Spreading Into Major Ocean Current
– AP IMPACT: Fed’l Inspections on Rig Not as Claimed:
The federal agency responsible for ensuring that an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico was operating safely before it exploded last month fell well short of its own policy that inspections be done at least once per month, an Associated Press investigation shows.
Since January 2005, the federal Minerals Management Service conducted at least 16 fewer inspections aboard the Deepwater Horizon than it should have under the policy, a dramatic fall from the frequency of prior years, according to the agency’s records.
Scientists studying video of the gushing oil well have tentatively calculated that it could be flowing at a rate of 25,000 to 80,000 barrels of oil a day. The latter figure would be 3.4 million gallons a day.
– Beyond Stupid: BP CEO Tony Hayward:
“The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume.”
– US Oil Spill: Scientists and Fishermen Alarmed Over Chemical Dispersants:
Approximately 325,000 gallons of dispersant have been deployed so far in BP’s effort to break up the spreading oil slick before it hits the fragile Gulf coast, and over 500,000 gallons more are available.
– Rig firm makes $270m profit from Gulf of Mexico oil spill
– US not accepting foreign help on oil spill
– Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill: New NOAA Projection Map; BP’s High-Stakes Mission; And More News
– Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill: The Halliburton Connection:
The company acknowledged Friday that it had completed the final cementing of the oil well and pipe just 20 hours before the blowout last week.