The Gulf oil spill may now be causing health impacts to various Gulf Coast residents. Many residents near the spill, such as one person from Venice, Louisiana seen in the video below, are reporting headaches, nausea, coughing and throat irritation. These symptoms have been linked to oil spill disaster before, though it is hard to prove a direct link between any chemical and a medical symptom.
The impact on human health from this disaster could come from many sources including:
- Contamination of the water supply with diluted oil.
- Increased toxicity in the air due to oil that is either burned or evaporates. The burned and evaporated oil does not simply disappear, instead the chemicals are essentially diluted further into the air.
- A contamination of the food supply as the oil works its way up the food chain.
In addition, all of these potential dangers may be heightened by the use of chemical dispersants on the oil spill. BP is spraying the dispersants from the air and also using dispersants underwater at the source of the leak. Over 400,000 gallons of dispersants have already been used and over 500,000 more gallons are on order from BP. The dispersants are actually much more toxic than the oil, but they are still being used under the theory that the massive oil spill is the greater evil.
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