Oil spill cleanup workers sought for long-term health study
By Guy Busby, Press-Register
27 March 2012 GULF SHORES, Alabama — State and federal health officials are asking anyone who worked on the BP oil spill cleanup to sign up for what has become the biggest study of its kind. More than 16,000 people, including beach cleanup crews, Vessels of Opportunity operators, support personnel and others have signed up for the Gulf Long-term Followup, or GuLF, Study, said Dale Sandler, chief of the Epidemiology Branch of the National Institute of Environmental Health. “We’ve done more than 2,700 of our telephone interviews in Alabama already,” she said. “We hope at the end of the day that we’ll have 8,000 people at least from Alabama, which would reflect back at about 21 percent of the people who are on our list as having done something related to the oil spill cleanup did come from Alabama.” Sandler said she expects at least 40,000 people across the Gulf Coast to be signed up for the study by the end of this year. The telephone interviews will be followed by interviews in participants’ homes. “We are really the largest study that’s ever been done,” she said. “Largely the big oil spills have not had any kind of health follow-up let alone long-term. We already have enrolled more workers in our study than all the others put together.” She said some long-term studies have been conducted following spills in other countries, such as Spain and South Korea, and short-term studies were done after the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska. […] Elliott said participants can volunteer by calling 855-644-4853(855-NIH-GULF
