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TAMPA — The news cameras may have moved away from the Gulf of Mexico with the sealing of the Deepwater Horizon well, but some of the nation's top medical researchers are just starting to focus on the overall health impact the massive spill has had on cleanup workers.
And they're moving fast.
"We'll maximize community support by minimizing delays," said Dale Sandler, lead researcher on the study and chief of the epidemiology branch at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. "It shows we're serious."
About 50 leading scientists gathered in Tampa Wednesday to finalize the design of the ambitious Gulf Worker Study, which expects to start enrolling subjects next month.
Researchers hope to track 27,000 workers who had exposure to oil and chemical dispersants during the cleanup process. Another group of workers, who were trained but never worked in the field, will be used as a control group.
Scientists will be looking at the potential health consequences of workers' exposure to the chemicals, from immediate concerns like skin rashes to long-term effects like cancer. They will also be working with collaborators to evaluate workers' mental health. A separate study will address the oil spill's impact on children and pregnant women in the gulf area.
The Gulf Worker Study, which is expected to run for at least five years, has received $10 million from the National Institutes of Health and another $10 million from BP PLC, the well's owner.
"Frankly most of the funds will be coming from the government, but we hold out hope" that BP will give more, National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins said Wednesday.
Most studies on oil spill impacts have been short-term and focused on the effects on animals, rather than humans. Though there have been 38 supertanker oil spills over the last 50 years, only eight have been followed for human health effects. Among the most studied were the Exxon Valdez in 1989 and a spill off Spain in 2002. The Deepwater Horizon spill, which began with an explosion of an oil rig on April 20 and was capped last week, is larger than any other incident.
Collins told fellow scientists in Tampa that the Gulf Worker Study was different from most research projects because of the degree of public skepticism, the intense public concern over the issue and the potential for lawsuits. He said workers will be guaranteed that personal medical information gathered for the study cannot be used against them in any litigation.
Urging his colleagues to share data freely in order to understand the impact of oil spills, Collins said, "The health effects remain undefined and need to be defined."
Kris Hundley can be reached at khundley@sptimes.com or (727)892-2996.
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