Experts Focus on Identifying, Mitigating Potential Health Effects of Gulf Oil Leak

Abstract

DOES THIS MEAN NO KIDS LIVING on the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts can go swimming again even if the beaches have no oil on them? That no pregnant woman here should ever eat local seafood? Or that our young men have to worry about their sperm for the next 20 years?” The woman directed her frustrated questions to the academics, government officials, and public health officers who had gathered in late June at an Institute of Medicine (IOM) workshop in New Orleans to present their ideas and recommendations for mitigating the potential adverse health effects of the British Petroleum (BP) Deepwater Horizon disaster. But the experts couldn’t offer definitive data or consensus on the risks posed by the oil leak, which has released as many as 60 000 barrels of crude oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico since April 20. Despite a history of 400 oil spills worldwide since 1960, including 38 supertanker leaks, epidemiological studies have been conducted on only 7. One examined the other notorious oil spill in US waters, which occurred when the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Prince William Sound, Alaska, in 1989, but that study focused on the psychosocial effects of the spill on local communities. The limited existing data are inconclusive, US Surgeon General Regina M. Benjamin, MD, MBA, told the attendees of the IOM workshop, which was convened at the request of the Department of Health and Human Services. “Some scientists predict little or no toxic threat to humans from exposure to oil or dispersants, while others express serious concern about the potential shortand long-term impact on the health of responders and affected communities,” said Benjamin. The sheer magnitude of the unabated Deepwater Horizon spill has stretched the bounds of scientific knowledge. “No governmental agency in the world is prepared to address health surveillance and monitoring for such a disaster,” said Lynn R. Goldman, MD, MPH, professor of environmental health sciences at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “We must clearly communicate the limits of our knowledge to communities. But what will be especially tough to communicate is that our definition of who is exposed and to what toxins can change as we get more data and analyze them.”