Mystery illnesses plague Gulf oil spill crews one year later

JAMIE Simon worked on a barge in the oily waters for six months following the BP spill last year, cooking for the cleanup workers, washing their clothes and tidying up after them.

One year later, the 32-year-old said she still suffers from a range of debilitating health problems, including racing heartbeat, vomiting, dizziness, ear infections, swollen throat, poor sight in one eye and memory loss.

She blames toxic elements in the crude oil and the dispersants sprayed to dissolve it after the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico about 80 kilometres off the coast of Louisiana on April 20, 2010.

“I was exposed to those chemicals, which I questioned, and they told me it was just as safe as dishwashing liquid and there was nothing for me to worry about,” she said of the BP bosses at the job site.

The local doctor, Mike Robichaux, said he has seen as many as 60 patients like Simon in recent weeks, as this small southern town of 10,000 bordered by swamp land and sugar cane fields grapples with a mysterious sickness that some believe is all BP’s fault.

Andy LaBoeuf, 51, said he was paid $1,500 (€1,039) per day to use his boat to go out on the water and lay boom to contain some of the 4.9 million barrels of oil that spewed from the bottom of the ocean after the BP well ruptured. But four months of that job left him ill and unable to work, describing memory problems and a sore throat that has nagged him for a year.

Robichaux, an ear, nose and throat specialist says he is treating many of the local patients in their homes.

The state of Louisiana has reported 415 cases of health problems linked to the spill.

Local chemist Wilma Subra has been helping test people’s blood for volatile solvents, and said levels of benzene among cleanup workers and fishermen are as high as 36 times that of the general population.

Asked for comment, BP said in an email that “protection of response workers was a top priority” and that it had conducted “extensive monitoring of response workers” in co-ordination with several government agencies.