Study Planned to Determine BP Oil Spill Health Effects

The Deepwater Horizon explosion left many problems in its wake. Oil rig workers were killed and others were seriously injured. Families lost their loved ones and a giant oil slick threatened the U.S. coast. Industries were impacted and people watched their livelihoods disappear. Yet, there is still another repercussion that remains to be determined and that is the health effects the BP oil spill has had on cleanup workers.

According to an article posted on the Bloomberg Businessweek website titled, “Experts craft study of BP oil spill health effects,” there is a plan to conduct a massive study of the health effects of the BP oil spill on cleanup workers and the public. Numerous physicians, health experts and scientists have already started to create the structure of the study, which may include up to 27,000 people who were involved in the cleanup work of the oil spill.

There have been 38 large oil tanker spills in the past five decades, but only eight of those spills were studied to determine health effects. This recent study will be conducted by the National Institutes of Health and will try to uncover how the oil spill has affected human health.

“It would be great to get some sort of sense about the larger community and larger population. To tell the public, ‘this is where you fit in terms of what we’ve found in terms of health effects,’” said Robert Wallace, a committee member and a professor of epidemiology of the University of Iowa.

BP is contributing $10 million to fund the study.

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If you were involved in the BP oil spill cleanup efforts and have been experiencing health problems, contact us today by calling 877.724.7800 or filling out our online form.

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