Health Effect of Oil Spills on Clean-Up Workers

Oil spills take an environmental toll, but do they also harm the health of clean-up workers? In 2002, a tanker spilled 67,000 tons of oil along the coast of northwestern Spain. Nearly 2 years later, Spanish researchers evaluated the health of 500 fishermen who participated in the clean-up and 177 fishermen who did not.

Clean-up workers had elevated rates of lower respiratory tract symptoms (e.g., chronic cough, breathlessness); however, lung function testing showed no significant differences between groups. When the analysis was restricted to people who were lifelong nonsmokers who did not have asthma, levels of 3 of 11 markers of airway injury (e.g., a marker of oxidative stress, vascular endothelial growth factor, basic fibroblast growth f…