The words "We've never seen anything like it" are repeated by scientists, seafood processors and fishermen throughout the gulf region. A feature article from Al Jazeera English, Gulf seafood deformities alarm scientists, examines the alarming abnormalities turning up in fish, shrimp, crab and other species since the BP oil spill. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ BP's Deepwater Horizon spill and the subsequent, unprecedented dump of toxic chemical dispersants has damaged fisheries and affected the genomes of gulf seafood. ...... Along with collapsing fisheries, signs of malignant impact on the regional ecosystem are ominous: horribly mutated shrimp, fish with oozing sores, underdeveloped blue crabs lacking claws, eyeless crabs and shrimp - and interviewees' fingers point towards BP's oil pollution disaster as being the cause. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The Al piece is a must read. I can't do it justice here with just a few paragraphs but here are some quotes from various fishers and scientists interviewed for the article. The eerily constant refrain of "we've never seen anything like this" runs through the piece. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Tracy Kuhn and her husband Mike Roberts, commercial fishers from Louisiana: ...... "Disturbingly, not only do the shrimp lack eyes, they even lack eye sockets." "Some shrimpers are catching these out in the open Gulf [of Mexico]," she added, "They are also catching them in Alabama and Mississippi. We are also finding eyeless crabs, crabs with their shells soft instead of hard, full grown crabs that are one-fifth their normal size, clawless crabs, and crabs with shells that don't have their usual spikes … they look like they've been burned off by chemicals." __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Keath Ladner, a 3rd generation seafood processor in Mississippi: ...... "I've seen the brown shrimp catch drop by two-thirds, and so far the white shrimp have been wiped out," Ladner told Al Jazeera. "The shrimp are immune compromised. We are finding shrimp with tumors on their heads, and are seeing this everyday." ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Darla Rooks, a lifelong fisher from Louisiana in reference to crabs: ...... "with holes in their shells, shells with all the points burned off so all the spikes on their shells and claws are gone, misshapen shells, and crabs that are dying from within … they are still alive, but you open them up and they smell like they've been dead for a week". Rooks is also finding eyeless shrimp, shrimp with abnormal growths, female shrimp with their babies still attached to them, and shrimp with oiled gills. "We also seeing eyeless fish, and fish lacking even eye-sockets, and fish with lesions, fish without covers over their gills, and others with large pink masses hanging off their eyes and gills." ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Is there a tie to the BP spill and unprecedented use of dispersants? ...... "The dispersants used in BP's draconian experiment contain solvents, such as petroleum distillates and 2-butoxyethanol. Solvents dissolve oil, grease, and rubber," Dr Riki Ott, a toxicologist, marine biologist and Exxon Valdez survivor told Al Jazeera. "It should be no surprise that solvents are also notoriously toxic to people, something the medical community has long known".___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The dispersants are known to be mutagenic, a disturbing fact that could be evidenced in the seafood deformities. Shrimp, for example, have a life-cycle short enough that two to three generations have existed since BP's disaster began, giving the chemicals time to enter the genome. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Dr Andrew Whitehead, an associate professor of biology at Louisiana State University, co-authored the report Genomic and physiological footprint of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on resident marsh fishes that was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in October 2011. ...... Whitehead's work is of critical importance, as it shows a direct link between BP's oil and the negative impacts on the Gulf's food web evidenced by studies on killifish before, during and after the oil disaster. ...... "What we found is a very clear, genome-wide signal, a very clear signal of exposure to the toxic components of oil that coincided with the timing and the locations of the oil," Whitehead told Al Jazeera during an interview in his lab. "Impacts on those species are more than likely going to propagate out and effect other species. What this shows is a very direct link from exposure to DWH oil and a clear biological effect. And a clear biological effect that could translate to population level long-term consequences." __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Bobby Jindahl's office as well as BP gave statements about how extensively everything is being tested and state that it's "safe for human health." The FDA directed Al Jazeera to talk to NOAA but NOAA refused to comment citing pending litigation against BP. Let's hope they at least, are paying attention.____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ www.dailykos.com Seeing is believing, watch the stunning video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VVyPiV5xdY&feature=player_embedded