Health of Exxon Valdez Cleanup Workers Never Studied.

In light of the other thread "Warning To Gulf Volunteers: Almost Every Cleanup Worker From The 1989 Valdez Disaster Is Now Dead", I thought I'd look into it a bit further. I had a difficult time until I found this very informative article by a local expert in Alaska; a Journalist here in Anchorage.

I noted on the CNN video that it was not CNN reporting what was being said, but a guest who seemed to be an activist and activist's are often unreliable. It also bothered me her repeated mispronunciation of Valdez. How could she have any actual knowledge if she had never heard the word Valdez spoken out loud? Silly of me? Maybe, but telling all the same.

Health of Exxon Valdez Cleanup Workers Never Studied.

ANCHORAGE — You'd think that more than 20 years after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, scientists would know what, if any, long-term health dangers face the thousands of workers needed to clean up the Gulf of Mexico spill.

You'd be wrong.

"We don't know a damn thing," said Anchorage lawyer Michael Schneider, whose firm talked with dozens of Alaska cleanup workers following the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in preparation for a class-action lawsuit that never came.

I initially got curious about this because two people I do business with here in town, who helped with the Valdez cleanup, are now in the Gulf advising. They went without hesitation.

Add to that the many people I've met over the years who worked on that, that I know are still alive and healthy and I got very skeptical.

It seems to me this story went viral from that woman on CNN.

Another thing that needs to be considered here is that many of those who helped with the Valdez cleanup, were commercial fisherman. I do know the life expectancy of a commercial fisherman is very low. If you take that on its face you would think they all die young which is not true either. You see often the commercial fisherman who are killed in their very dangerous work are young inexperienced people. When you have people in their twenties being killed in work accidents, it skews the numbers.

I am not downplaying the importance of this by any means. Anyone getting sick is unacceptable and a tragedy. I just am not comfortable with what is clearly an erronious story distorting the facts. It's also telling that beyond the usual Blogger sites that cut and paste news, this is not being reported.

No formal follow-up study apparently was ever undertaken, however, or if it was, its results weren't published, three of the original reports' authors said.

In the years since, Alaska workers have reported ailments ranging from flu-like symptoms to chemical sensitivity to neurological damage.

This is important enough it needs to be studied and by studied I don't mean a statement fabricated out of thin air by some guest on CNN.

I've found sites that are reporting everyone who worked on the Valdez spill is dead. That is not even remotely true. Even the woman on CNN did not say that.

Interesting.

The report of everyone being dead is factually wrong. The first person I talked to that had helped with that cleanup laughed when I told him he was dead. He owns a Hotel and Bar and appears to be very healthy.

Also interesting that nobody gave this any notice. Truth is becoming a stranger to ATS of late. Seems everyone is here to be rubberneckers these days. Looking for blood, gore and end of the world scenarios without regard to truth.

First thread I pop open today features a video with the lie that everyone who worked on the Valdez Spill is dead. Amazing how lies spread so quick but truth can not be bothered with.