June 24, 2010
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/06/23/1697316/doctors-call-for-help-protecting.html
By Marisa Taylor
McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON A group of doctors who’ve tracked 9/11 rescue workers’ illnesses urged the Obama administration to “prevent a repetition of costly mistakes” made after the terrorist attacks by protecting Gulf Coast oil spill workers from toxic exposure.
In a letter McClatchy obtained that was sent to health and safety officials earlier this month, 14 doctors said oil spill workers should get the maximum level of protection from exposure in an effort to avoid the problems that arose after the Sept. 11 attacks.
After 9/11, health experts accused the Bush administration of withholding information about the toxicity of the air at the World Trade Center site from emergency workers and of being too slow to prevent exposure.
Long-term studies have since found that many 9/11 rescue workers and firefighters have suffered increased respiratory illnesses and reduced lung capacity.
“Failure to recognize the errors made from the response to the WTC disaster and a further failure to benefit from their attendant lessons may well lead to needless risk to human health in the Gulf and will amplify the human and financial costs associated with such risks,” the doctors wrote.
The group recommended that the program set up to track the health of the oil spill workers be sponsored by organizations other than BP. As it stands, the Obama administration is demanding that BP pay for the program.
The doctors wrote that the administration should “enforce applicable laws to the maximum extent possible, leaving as little as possible to the discretion of private industry.”
Critics are questioning whether the administration has left too many decisions about the health and safety of the estimated 37,000 oil spill workers to the discretion of BP as a growing number of them complain about exposure to toxins.
At least 74 spill workers have complained that they felt ill after exposure to air pollutants from the crude oil, dispersants and other toxins. Most of the symptoms ranging from throat irritation to nausea and headaches cleared up quickly.
While experts agree that the level of exposure is lower than federal safety standards permit, they say that what little information has been released offers more questions than answers.
Meanwhile, BP isn’t recording a majority of the exposures to air pollutants as part of its official tracking system of oil spill illnesses and injuries.
Adding to the concerns, workers are getting only the minimum hazardous-material training required, which is two to four hours. That’s because the administration chose to apply training standards that date to soon after the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska.
Health and safety officials also have declined to push BP to provide respirators to many of the workers. They’re worried about requiring respirators prematurely, in part because of the summer heat that many workers are exposed to. Respirators could trigger heat exhaustion or worsen its symptoms.
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http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/06/15/95950/bps-records-on-ill-workers-tell.html
BP’s records on ill workers tell only part of the story
June 15, 2010
By Marisa Taylor | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON Although Louisiana state records indicate that at least 74 oil spill workers have complained of becoming sick after exposure to pollutants, BP’s own official recordkeeping notes just two such incidents.
BP reported a wide range of worker injuries in the period from April 22 to June 10, from the minor a sprained ankle, a pinched finger and a cat bite to the more serious three instances of workers being struck by lightning and one worker who lost part of a finger.
Only two were related to coming in contact with potentially toxic substances: a worker who in May was sprayed in the face with dispersant as he took a nozzle off a boom and another who inhaled crude oil vapors in June.
In contrast, Louisiana reports that 38 workers have reported becoming ill from dispersant or emulsified oil. Most of those said their symptoms cleared up quickly.
The gap between the state data and BP’s reflects the difficulty in tracking the health effects of toxins from the oil spill. It also raises questions about whether the federal government can rely on BP to determine whether conditions remain safe for the more than 27,000 workers now engaged in cleaning up the worst oil spill in the nation’s history.
State health officials note the limitations of their data, which is based on worker complaints.
“Some of these are objective (vomiting, for example), others are subjective (nausea, for example),” Louisiana’s Department of Health and Hospitals said Tuesday in its weekly report on oil spill exposure. “There are large variations in how subjective symptoms are perceived and reported.”
“There is no attempt made in this report to confirm the exact cause of symptoms or exposure,” the report cautioned.
BP didn’t respond to phone calls Tuesday seeking comment, but the company’s records probably don’t reflect the exposure that Louisiana tracked because Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations don’t require that they do. The company is expected only to record illnesses and injuries on the job that require treatment that entails more than first aid.
“Anybody who calls the poison control center or drops into the emergency room without being officially hospitalized may not reach the level of an OSHA recordable,” Jordan Barab, the deputy assistant secretary of labor for OSHA, told McClatchy in an interview.
A May 26 incident involving the hospitalization of seven oil spill workers on boats off the coast of Louisiana also doesn’t appear to be reflected in BP’s data.
Those workers were taken to the hospital after they experienced nausea, dizziness and headaches. BP and health officials suspect that a solution used for cleaning the decks of oil-contaminated vessels may have been one of the factors that contributed to sickening the workers. The day after BP reached this conclusion, BP chief executive Tony Hayward claimed that the illnesses might be unrelated to the spill and instead could be symptoms of food poisoning.
Barab said the gap in data doesn’t prevent OSHA from tracking health problems as they arise.
“We’re trying to go places no matter what the numbers say,” he said. “We’re trying to be everywhere we can be.”
Barab, however, said his agency is concerned that BP isn’t required to track cleanup workers hired by state and local governments.
“That doesn’t necessarily go under BP’s logs,” he said. “We’re not quite sure whose log that’s going on.”
OSHA can’t fine or cite BP or its contractors for worker safety violations on the ships and rigs working near the Deepwater Horizon site because its jurisdiction ends three miles off shore. Regulating worker safety on rigs falls to the Minerals Management Service or the Coast Guard.
MMS has been criticized for its lack of scrutiny of the oil and gas industry on many fronts. The “downside” of another agency asserting jurisdiction, Barab said, is that it “can have really lousy standards but we can’t do anything about it.”
So far, BP has complied voluntarily with regulations so the federal government has not had to cite or fine any of the companies involved, Barab said.
“At this point, the jurisdiction issue has not been a problem for us,” he said.
Special thanks for Richard Charter