Watching the BP oil disaster unfold, lurking in the back of my mind has been a disturbing realization that the American people have few options for trustable protection -- from corporations or from our elected government -- when it comes to something like health safety after exposure to the toxic mixture of oil, methane and Corexit and its vapors, at sea, in the wetlands or on the beach. When one drills down, as it were, one finds a curious disingenuousness that can be described as, well, Oilwellian.
Who can we trust?
Let's start with the NYTimes 6-18-10 report that BP's toxic testing firm, the Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health (CTEH), had a questionable record in prior chemical exposures before it became BP's main source of testing on health effects after the Mocando blowout disaster:
After a million gallons of oil spilled on a Louisiana town in 2005, after a flood of toxic coal ash smothered central Tennessee in 2008 and after defective Chinese drywall began plaguing Florida homeowners, the same firm [CTEH] was on the scene -- saying everything was fine.
continued at Daily Kos....