BP spill workers seek care as health study progresses

21st November 2011   ·   0 Comments

By Susan Buchanan
Contributing Writer

A multi-million-dollar, federal study by the National Institute of Environ­mental Health Sciences, gauging impacts of the BP spill on cleanup workers, has so far enrolled 5,500 individuals—mostly from Gulf states. The NIEHS hopes to interview thousands more from a pool of 150,000 cleanup workers, and has searched for people to interview this fall. The study refers individuals to medical care but doesn’t pay for it.

Critics say that worker health interviews, which started last February or some seven months after BP’s well was capped, should have begun sooner to uncover critical information. They also say that while Washington spends money on data collection for a long-term, scientific study, uninsured workers are struggling to find care for spill-related ailments. Unemployed workers and fishermen were among those hired to do BP cleanup last year, and many of them don’t have health insurance.

Last week, Dale Sandler, NIEHS epidemiology branch chief, said the Gulf Long-term Follow-up Study—funded by the National Institutes of Health—is expected to cost more than $30 million in its first five years. That will include the cost of finding and interviewing 55,000 workers, conducting more than 20,000 clinical exams, determining exposure to chemicals, doing more-detailed medical exams with some of the workers, and following individuals for changes in health over time. “We’re planning to continue following these workers for 10 or even 20 years,” she said.

NIEHS has previously said that the spill workers’ study, announced over a year ago by NIH, was funded at $17.8 million over five years, including $6 million from BP. Meanwhile, a separate, five-year, general population-based health study, announced this past July by NIH, is funded at $25.2 million and includes $3.2 million from BP.

Sandler said that of the more than 5,500 cleanup workers enrolled in the study to date, about 90 percent are from Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida. And of the 1,000 home visits and clinical exams conducted by the study to date, more than 80 percent of the individuals are from communities directly affected by the spill.

Sandler said “as part of the study, participants will be given a medical assessment, and referred to local doctors and clinics that provide medical and mental health care at free or reduced costs if they need it.”

She said “over time, the study will generate data that may help inform policy decisions on health care and services in the region.”

Referrals are useful but getting low cost medical care on the Gulf Coast isn’t as easy as it sounds. Chemist Wilma Subra, head of Subra Company, an environmental consulting firm with a lab in New Iberia, said “while there are a number of free or reduced-cost clinics along the coast—receiving state and federal, as well as foundation resources—most or all of these clinics are overburdened with patients. These clinics are also not equipped with doctors trained in toxic chemical exposure.” Subra received the 2011 Global Exchange, Human Rights Award for her continuing work on the BP spill and communities affected by it.

Subra isn’t knocking the usefulness of the NIEHS study but worries that it collects medical information from workers without addressing their medical needs. Dr. Mike Robichaux, an ear, nose and throat specialist in Raceland and former state senator, is treating people affected by the spill and agrees. He said at a post-spill meeting in Montegut, La.—attended by the NIH and scientists, where the NIEHS spill workers’ study was discussed—he stood up and asked “while millions are spent over a five-year period on studies, what’s going to be done about the scores of very ill patients that I’m seeing in the meantime?”

He also said “delays in the study prevented it from capturing initial worker symptoms so that they could be contrasted with problems being experienced today.” The spill ended in July 2010, and NIEHS’s first surveys began in February 2011. Today, some 16 months after the spill, the NIEHS through community meetings and liaising with groups on the coast is still looking for cleanup workers to interview. A meeting was held for spill cleanup workers and volunteers in Chauvin on November 9, and another meeting was held that day for Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes seafood leaders and employers to help identify cleanup workers.

As for worker ailments, Robichaux said “most of the spill-related problems with cough, skin rashes, et cetera have improved. But the neurological problems that people have been experiencing have actually gotten worse.”

He continued, saying “after seeing a large number of spill-related patients and treating their less serious problems, I found myself with a potpourri of what appear to be neuroendocrine disorders that have been difficult to treat.”

Neuroendocrine ailments relate to the dual control of functions by the nervous system and hormones. “I have seen several patients who have no positive laboratory or X-ray abnormalities, but who are actually paralyzed,” he said. Robichaux also said that, to the best of his knowledge, other doctors attending to the same group of patients have been unable to manage their health problems.

He said a detoxification program to remove neurotoxins from the fat stores of the body has met with success, and he is running one from his home in Raceland.

Dr. Robichaux said he has treated a handful of patients with insurance. “Otherwise, the majority of these victims were seen after office hours or on weekends, and no charges were levied. I’ve drawn blood on about 80 patients for chemicals related to the spill, and in all of these cases the work was performed pro bono.”

He also said many of the patients have not received regular, followup care because they live far from his office, including out of state, or lack transportation. “Some local residents can’t make it to our treatment center because they can’t afford the gas,” he said. “They’re unable to work because of their illnesses.”

Dr. Robichaux uses a detoxification program that includes exercise, saunas, vitamins and mineral supplements, along with niacin to promote sweating. “We have just completed our first wave of treatment, and the results are very encouraging,” he said. Within the next two months, he plans to announce what some of his patients have accomplished.

Subra, a technical adviser to Louisiana Environmental Action Network in Baton Rouge, said since the spill LEAN has asked people with related health symptoms to fill out its survey forms so that the event’s effects can be better understood. Its survey results will be used to demonstrate the need for more care providers and facilities treating illnesses from chemical exposures.

“LEAN has collected around 150 health surveys, and a very large number of people have reported their health impacts directly to Marylee Orr and myself,” Subra said. Marylee Orr is LEAN’S executive director. “We continue to receive phone calls on a daily basis concerning severe health impacts,” Subra also said.

Subra has given a number of presentations in the past year on the spill’s individual health impacts, and LEAN will report the results of its health surveys shortly, she said.

Ken Pastorick, spokesman for the Louisiana Dept. of Health and Hospitals, said from late May to late September 2010, the DHH recorded 415 health complaints thought to be related to oil spill pollutants or heat stress from working near the spill. Of those, 329 reports were from workers and 86 were from the general population. Symptoms included headaches, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, weakness, fatigue and upper respiratory irritations. Eighteen workers had short hospitalizations. The general population’s complaints were mainly related to odors.

Pastorick said “the state’s last oil-spill surveillance report on health complaints was completed on Sept. 25 of last year. As the risk of exposure diminished, the number of complaints declined, and Louisi­ana along with the other Gulf states decided to discontinue surveillance.” Since then, the LDHH has received six more spill-related complaints about workers, and they were self-reported, or reported by healthcare providers, hospitals or the Louisiana Poison Center 24 hour hotline. Cleanup workers who feel their health was impacted by the oil spill are referred by the LDHH to the National Institute of Environ­mental Health Sciences, he said. If people have symptoms, DHH and the Poison Center recommended that they seek medical attention.

Avis Gray, Dept. of Health and Hospitals public health administrator for Region 1, covering Plaquemines, St. Bernard, Orleans and Jefferson parishes, said “NIEHS has met with us a number of times in the last year to let us know about their study. We gave them information on the population and healthcare providers. NIEHS is talking with all the local players and we’re among them, as are Tulane and other universities along the Gulf Coast. Our discussions are an ongoing, fluid process.”

NIEHS has been involved in the BP spill from the start of the disaster, Sandler said, adding “we gave safety training to more than 150,000 clean-up workers.”

But Subra pointed to some of the problems with worker safety from the get-go. “Cleanup workers employed by BP were told not to wear respirators and could be fired if they wore them,” she said. Wearing respirators, it seems, would have been admission that the air around the spill was full of pollutants, and the equipment would have been caught on camera, while BP knew it was facing litigation from many corners.

This article was originally published in the November 21, 2011 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper