Green Health and Wellness

It is the official position of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that the chemicals BP used in the Gulf of Mexico to disperse spilled oil pose no public health risks.

However, amid concerns that the dispersants might persist in seafood, the FDA and NOAA have decided to start doing some laboratory testing.

Some of the fishing areas in the Gulf of Mexico are reopening. In fact, this week Louisiana reopened commercial fishing in areas East of the Mississippi. In the coming weeks, we can expect that many more areas will reopen to recreational and commercial fishing.

Whether a bowl of rice or a piece of bread, staple foods provide millions of poor people around the world with a source of basic sustenance day in and day out. Now, a new technology promises to make these foods-which provide calories but do not always contain enough of the micronutrients required for good health-more nutritious.

People who intake insufficient amounts of iron, zinc, and vitamin A can suffer from a hidden hunger," often with serious consequences.

The companies that BP has hired to oversee the disposal of oil-soaked debris on the Gulf Coast say that everything is going smoothly. According to those companies, cleanup workers are gathering used booms, contaminated sand, tar balls, oily garbage, and all other spill-related toxic material, packing them away in sealed containers, and shipping them to landfills.

Many of the fishermen who signed up to work for BP cleaning up the oil signed contracts that forbid them from talking to the press. Perhaps for that reason, reports of illnesses have been somewhat slow to emerge. Last week, the wives of some of the fishermen spoke out publicly about the symptoms their husbands were experiencing. This week, some fishermen are starting to come forward. In this WDSU TV interview, one of the fishermen reports feeling drugged, disoriented, tingling, fatigued, and also reporting shortness of breath and cough. These are symptoms that are consistent with what one might expect from exposure to hydrocarbons in oil.

Florida residents may soon come face to face with what may become one of the worst oil spills in history.

Yahoo News reported today that the crude oil gushing out of British Petroleum's Deepwater Horizon well may soon be swept up in currents that will take it through the Florida Keys and up Florida's Atlantic Coast. In about 10 days, sunbathers and beach bums in Palm Beach will think twice before donning bikinis.

I continue today with Part 2 of my Q&A about oil spill health concerns with a look at different groups of people who are at a particular risk to health impacts associated with the oil spill.

In my next post, I’ll address health tips for people working on the clean-up. And you can find answers to basic background questions in my first post here.

I continue today with Part 2 of my Q&A about oil spill health concerns with a look at different groups of people who are at a particular risk to health impacts associated with the oil spill.

In my next post, I’ll address health tips for people working on the clean-up. And you can find answers to basic background questions in my first post here.

As we’re waiting for the full scale of environmental, economic and wildlife impacts from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to unfold, there’s a lot of speculation and unanswered questions going around about what this means for the health of people living and working in the region.

To help answer these questions, I’ve put together a three-part Q&A on what this means for human health.

Virginia Tech and WVU researchers have found a connection between the ecological health of Appalachian streams and cancer deaths in the region. (Hat tip to Ken Ward, Jr. at the Charleston Gazette.)

Published in the journal EcoHealth this month, the first-of-its kind study analyzed relationships between a measure of stream health based on the presence and distribution of small freshwater creatures, cancer mortality rates, and factors such as poverty and smoking.