The effects of the oil spill on human health

By Laura Raines

Pulse editor

When Linda McCauley was invited to participate in a two-day Institute of Medicine workshop to assess the human health effects of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, she didn’t hesitate.

McCauley, dean of Emory University’s Nell Hodgson Woodruff School Nursing, sits on the Institute of Medicine’s environmental health round table, so she rearranged her schedule and headed to New Orleans for the workshop in late June.

She wasn’t the only one.

“It was a mammoth undertaking to pull so many different experts together in three weeks,” said McCauley, RN, Ph.D., FAAN, FAAOHN. “The U.S. Surgeon General, Regina Benjamin, was there, as were the health commissioners from all five affected states [Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Florida], the president of the Institute of Medicine, and many renowned scientists in a variety of fields. It was impressive to see how many people cleared their calendars.”

The purpose of the workshop was to explore the potential short-term and long-term health impact of the oil spill, identify major concerns and appropriate ways to monitor and address the potential risks.

“It was a broad sweep of all the different aspects of this disaster, whose magnitude is larger than any we’ve seen,” she said. “We spent two days sitting and listening to one another talk, and it’s amazing how much we learned.

“We identified concerns and there was a lot of discussion on how to set up ways to monitor the population while being sensitive to its needs. We want to do things the right way.”

A major concern is to reduce health risks to the 20,000 workers who have come to the area to help clean up. The federal government has been providing hazardous waste training.

“Because of the pure volume of chemicals in the area from the oil and the dispersants, workers could be exposed to skin and eye irritations, dizziness, headaches and respiratory problems,” McCauley said. “Long term, there could be increased neurological, cancer and human reproductive risks. It’s very toxic work, and heat stress can be deadly.”

Workers who helped clean up the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 didn’t mind wearing protective suits, gloves and masks because it was cold in Alaska.

“Conditions are very different in the Gulf, so we must be diligent about maintaining rosters of workers and monitoring them for heat stress and fatigue,” she said. “When people suffer extreme temperatures, they’re more likely to engage in risky behavior, such as taking off protective gear or not taking breaks.”

A nationally recognized environmental health researcher, McCauley is interested in the psychological stress of the disaster on Gulf-area residents and workers.

“It touches workers who see the devastation, and residents who have lost their livelihoods,” she said. “For people who live close to water, it can be psychologically meaningful to their souls.”

Public health professionals need to be ready for the aftermath.

“What we’re expecting to see is increased reports of depression, family violence, alcoholism and substance abuse — all of the things that we know can happen when families are stressed to the maximum,” McCauley said. “We know that public health nurses, doctors and social workers are strapped for resources under normal circumstances. The current manpower is simply not up to the task.”

The Gulf community has asked the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to continue to be involved, and McCauley would like to address the issue of caring for health care providers.

“It’s imperative that we work proactively to give these communities the help that they need,” she said.

The IOM initial assessment workshop was helpful and hopeful in dealing with complex issues, McCauley said.

“I felt so positive about how far we’ve come in responding to disasters,” she said. “Unfortunately, we’ve taken some big hits with Oklahoma [City bombing], the collapse of the World Trade Center and [Hurricane] Katrina, but experience is a great teacher.”

Health experts didn’t think to keep a roster of workers at the World Trade Center site at the time. Only later did they realize it would be necessary in order to provide follow-up care and research studies.

Contract workers brought in to help with Hurricane Katrina weren’t given protective equipment, and there were major communication issues between state and local governments, McCauley said.

“Will we get everything right this time?” she asked. “No, but we’re going to do it better.”