The Macondo well blowout on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico lays bare just how little scientists know about that great expanse of saltwater and its creatures, but in fishing communities from Florida to Louisiana, some people have vital questions of their own.
Could hydrocarbons from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion be building up in people through the seafood they commonly eat – brown shrimp, white shrimp, oysters, blue crab, redfish, speckled trout and mackerel – and what does it mean if they are?
"Right now, all we have is the FDA recommendation of two 3-ounce servings a week. But these are fishing communities," says Sharon Petronella Croisant, an epidemiologist at the University of Texas Medical Branch and director of the Community-Based Research Facility affiliated with the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
At a research consortium centered in Galveston, scientists, together with a colleague in Philadelphia, are recruiting 100 people each from three especially seafood-dependent Gulf Coast communities in Mississippi and Louisiana, and another 100 from Galveston. Those in the study will be asked to give blood and urine samples. Scientists also hope to add 10 pregnant women each year who will give breast milk and umbilical cord blood once they deliver.
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