Workplace safety experts are expressing concerns that the ongoing health problems of cleanup workers in the gulf, related to vomiting, dizziness, headaches and nose and throat irritation, is on account of chemical exposure and are concerned that the four hour safety training course is inadequate.
propublica.org: Joseph Hughes, director of the worker training program at the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences, said the course fails to incorporate important information. Among the subjects not included are chemical inhalation, the health effects of dispersants, and the risks of direct contact with weathered crude oil.
Hughes said that his office is pressing Unified Command — the interagency spill response team that consists of BP, Transocean, the Coast Guard and numerous federal agencies — to implement an eight-hour training course for those at greater risk of contact with hazardous materials. The course would include the chemical exposure curriculum that is not provided in the current trainings.
How about, Bottom Line…supply respirators for workers!! Please learn from my experience and do not end this spill cleanup with BP Collateral Damaged.
My letter to Gulf residents.
http://www.urbanconservancy.org/letters/gulf-coast-cleanup-caution-urged
The crude oil is toxic, and anyone who cleans the oily Gulf beaches needs to know the danger. Don’t allow the workers to become BP’s Collateral Damaged, like Exxon.
http://www.lvrj.com/news/exxon-valdez-oil-risks-spur-warning-for-gulf-cleanup-crews-93258964.html
My name is Merle Savage, a female general foreman during the Exxon Valdez oil spill (EVOS) beach cleanup in 1989. I am one of the 11,000+ cleanup workers from the Exxon Valdez oil spill (EVOS), who is suffering from health issues from that toxic cleanup, without compensation from Exxon.
Dr. Riki Ott visited me in 2007 to explain about the toxic spraying on the beaches, and informed me that Exxon’s medical records that surfaced in litigation by sick workers in 1994, had been sealed from the public, making it impossible to hold Exxon responsible for their actions. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5632208859935499100
Beach crews breathed in crude oil that splashed off the rocks and into the air — the toxic exposure turned into chronic breathing conditions, central nervous system problems, neurological impairment, chronic respiratory disease, leukemia, lymphoma, brain tumors, liver damage, and blood disease. http://www.silenceinthesound.com/stories.shtml
My web site is devoted to searching for EVOS cleanup workers who were exposed to the toxic spraying, and are suffering from the same illnesses that I have. There is an on going Longshoreman’s claim for workers with medical problems from the oil cleanup. Our summer employment turned into a death sentence for many — and a life of unending medical conditions for the rest of Exxon’s Collateral Damaged.