BP spill workers, Barnett Shale residents same chemicals in blood

Workers who cleaned up the BP spill are showing up with illnesses and with toxic chemicals in their blood and it all looks eerily familiar.

Illnesses linked to BP oil disaster
Doctor attributes widespread sickness to toxic chemicals from the Gulf of Mexico catastrophe.

Dr. Rodney Soto, a medical doctor in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida, has been testing and treating patients with high levels of oil-related chemicals in their blood stream. These are commonly referred to as Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC’s). Anthropogenic VOC’s from BP’s oil disaster are toxic and have negative chronic health effects.

Dr. Soto is finding from five to seven VOCs in patients’ blood. Some of the chemicals found in blood samples are the same chemicals found in Barnett Shale residents’ blood. He believes the pathways of exposure are “air, skin and seafood.”

• ethylbenzene
• Hexane
• M,p-Xylene

Dr. Soto is most concerned about the long-term effect of the toxins, because they have “tremendous implications in the human immune system, hormonal function, and brain function.”

He has special concern for the children who are exposed to these toxic chemicals.

One young woman who went swimming in the Gulf has already developed cancer.

Think about this: Who decides who suffers? If you don’t do something, if you don’t speak out, if you just use the gas and turn your head, you are deciding that it’s okay for us to suffer.