UPDATE 8-16-10: After months of virtual silence about mental health complaints among Gulf coast residents since the spill shook up lives -- and their way of life -- BP has announced they will fund mental health services to the tune of $52 million. Here's the Pro Publica story with the details. Children were a special focus of a Columbia University Mailman School of Medicine study (see PDF in Pro Publica article). One of the chief researchers, Dr. Irwin Redlener, had this to say to NPR (8-10-10):
"The medical side [regarding children] included very severe rashes, or coughing or wheezing that was otherwise unexplained -- and then a host of psychological consequences which included depression, difficulty sleeping and a variety of other problems that these children were expressing. Even 9-year-old children were talking about their way of life being over. That was a pretty hair-raising experience, to hear so many young people talk about the end of a way of life."
More below the fold.
When asked about adults, Dr. Redlener said,
"Well, the adults also have just an unrelenting amount of anxiety about the consequences of this massive oil catastrophe down there. Tremendous instability in families around livelihood and the possibility of having to maybe move away from the region which about one in four families have already been talking about. The families themselves are having a lot of discord. Very stable families under these kinds of pressures are feeling lots of stress. There's an increase in domestic violence and even reports of suicide in some coastal communities."
We remain concerned about how this mental health care funded by BP will be administered, if by non-commercial public agencies or by subcontracted private insurance companies who might filter out "pre-existing conditions" without considering exacerbation of pre-existing conditions (such as alcoholism) caused by stress of the BP disaster. We'll monitor how BP's funding works as closely as the newsmedia are able to report. Below is our earlier post on the subject:
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Last weekend we posted a diary on BP's "Oilwellian" style of (not) protecting cleanup workers from potential toxic exposures to oil, Corexit and methane, and forbidding them under threat of firing from using their own respirators or speaking to the press about physical complaints.
No sooner were the pixels dry on that diary than AC 360 Anderson Cooper ran a story 6-29-10 about "an uptick in people in distress" and community pleas to BP to pay for mental health residuals showing up in residents of the Gulf Coast attributed to their the sudden fall into economic and cultural despair as they face the loss of not only their jobs but their entire way of life.
Again, as BP is doing with their continued use of Corexit (despite EPA's order to cease weeks ago) and not providing (even prophylactically) protective respirators to cleanup workers as advised by many health experts, BP is slow-walking the mental health issue, and must be prodded to meet its responsibilities which means prodding the White House and Thad Allen to keep up pressure on BP. This means you, dear reader.
BP spokesman Doug Suttles responded to the state of LA health department's request for $10 million for treatment of mental health problems by saying he was "in spirited discussions with the state" and "looks forward to continuing the dialogue."
Maybe BP will surprise us and come through with requested funds for mental health without a fuss. Hopefully they will not act as private insurance companies usually do -- filter out mental health complaints as "all in the head" or "pre-existing" in cases of increased drinking and other self-destructive habits to "medicate" anxiety or depression without considering exacerbation or aggravation of pre-existing conditions due to the stressors of the BP oil spill's effects on job loss, business damages, etc.
We're looking at significant expenses for counseling, psychiatric evaluation and monitoring, medication and hospitalization (in the case of severe suicidal ideation or actual attempts). Louisiana is worried about having to raise state taxes to pay for these costs if BP doesn't come through.
With emerging mental health problems on the Gulf coast we again see the Obama administration’s failure to look ahead to anticipate the consequences of allowing a profound power imbalance between BP and average people to drive citizens nuts (in some cases literally).
First, the Obama wizards were slow as coagulated crude to protect Gulf coast fishermen, shrimpers and businesses from being nickel and dimed by BP's subcontracted insurance agents in getting their financial loss claims taken care of, preferring instead to benefit politically by triangulating the situation and casting BP as hard-hearted villain but not moving to solve the problem until the righteous fury of nearly an entire nation swept over the White House and Obama finally got BP to set up the $20B fund and an agreement to have a third party (Feinberg) administer the claims.
Whew! But that was only Part I of the job to “make it right” in the lopsided power disparity on the Gulf between BP and the "small people" represented by states with limited budgets. This situation is one of the crises the federal government was invented for -- yet Obama has been holding back and maintaining an "oversight" role while BP has its way with workers and Gulf residents on issues of physical and mental health effects resulting from the BP disaster, not even assessing them, just hiding them as much as they can, forbidding workers to talk to the press.
"Ignorance is strength," said Big Brother (in Orwell's "1984") who is now at large under the rubric of "BP," even assigning fake "reporters" to report the "facts" about the oil spill from BP's Ministry of Truth, describing cleanup operations on the ocean as a lovely "ballet." Is this a glimpse of the non-democracy of our corporate future?
Meanwhile, resting on his laurels from (at least temporarily) resolving the $20B dilemma (we await the trap door to be revealed), in a mirror situation not yet resolved, Obama has been allowing BP to continue its use of hundreds of thousands of gallons of highly toxic Corexit dispersant (ordered by EPA to be stopped weeks ago and banned in Britain -- see Jamess' detailed diary on Corexit's toxicity). The Obama team has allowed BP to neglect protection of beach and ocean cleanup workers with respirators when exposed to toxic oil residuals, Corexit and methane, especially out in the midst of thick oil on the water. With the mental health question, here comes another wave of consequences of the same passive administration stance: exposure of Gulf residents to the stress of the entire upending, unnerving experience of the BP disaster, bringing symptoms of anxiety and depression, with some people "medicating" these symptoms by drinking more, etc, many too proud to admit anxiety or depression.
Again, the administration is passively letting the state of Louisiana and its citizens, with its limited budgetary resources and lawyer power (and countervailing push-pulling by its captured pro-oil political leadership in Sen. Landrieu), struggle with giant multibillion dollar BP instead of having the USG step in and take over the entire situation in the form of FEMA and other public agencies (as opposed to profit-oriented private contractors), to protect and treat cleanup workers as well as average citizens for symptoms from residuals of the BP spill, whether they be respiratory illness due to exposure to the toxic soup in the Gulf or the anxiety, depression and suicidality symptoms secondary to job loss, displacement and watching their way of life completely disappear virtually overnight.
Gulf citizens can put in claims for lost wages and business income and wait for checks to arrive, sure. But claims for their feelings of anxiety and depression and anger are much harder to document and heal, feelings of passivity and powerlessness waiting for checks to arrive in people once active and independent in their fishing, shrimping, boating, restauranting, resort-hosting and other ways of life on the Gulf, proud people suddenly forced into a dependent mode. Other feelings must be despair over loss of their Gulf culture as well as foreboding and loss of confidence because they don’t know what’s coming next. This is entirely on BP's doorstep.
Time is off the essence for assessment and treatment of physical and mental illnesses caused by the BP oil disaster. Instead of letting suffering Gulf residents get sandbagged by BP’s Oilwellian runaround and weeks of Doug Suttles' “dialogue,” the Obama administration can cut to the chase and step in and take care of the public and chase down BP itself for reimbursement much faster than waiting for BP to have a religious conversion to become believers in the public interest. That’s what Obama is supposed to be: a believer in the public interest. Let him lead the way to make sure the public is served in this situation, as he (finally) did by forcing BP to set up the $20B fund under a third party.
(As a side note, treatment of physical and emotional symptoms would be more economically handled via a small single payer program set up specifically for this purpose, to save taxpayers money in the interim until BP reimburses the USG and also saving BP money in the long run, like a mini-Medicare on the Gulf set up solely for this purpose).
Let the news report speak for itself in the AC360 video clip below. Afterwards, please, dear reader, write or call the WH and urge the Obama team to “make it right” on the Gulf by assigning FEMA, OSHA and other federal agencies to take over worker safety, protection and medical treatment for exposures to the toxic oil swill as well as diagnosis and treatment for mental health symptoms – and get the money back from BP later. The WH doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel. It’s another stare-down across a long table.
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Caption: Health experts want BP to pay for treatment of mental health issues brought on by the spill. CNN's Randi Kaye reports. June 29, 2010 | 03:06 min
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This from James Carville in the video clip bears
reading slowly to underscore the depth of sadness going on along the Gulf coast:
CARVILLE: And one of the things -- and Billy [Nungesser] can attest to this -- it's really not just earning a living. It's a way of life. It's an entire culture.
And if you went in there and you gave them the money they lost, it wouldn't matter. If they don't have their culture, if they don't have their way of life, if they don't raise their kids like that, if they don't pass this on, if they have to move from there, and somebody may look at it and say, oh, well, look at that. It's humid out there and it's marshland, or they have got storms that come. People love that land. They love what they do. Their fathers, their grandfathers, their great-grandfathers and mothers did the same thing. And so you cut them a check, you haven't done anything. These people, this is their lives. This is what they do. They love that. That's what people don't understand about life here in South Louisiana. We don't want to move.
Yes, they are going to have to take a check, but they don't want a check. They want their life. They want to earn the living that they do. [emphasis ours]
"It's the way of life, stupid!"