Gulf Long-term Follow-up Study - Essay Example

"Gulf Long-term Follow-up Study" is a wonderful example of a paper on Poisoning, Toxicology, Environmental Health. Oil spillage has negative ramifications on the environment. More so it is worse when this happens in a relatively stagnant body of water as this can cause death to aquatic life. This is an unfortunate event that happened after the deep well used to drill crude oil and exploded and spewed the oil over the Gulf of Mexico. The sheer size of the oil was spreading over the sea, and the potential negative ramification on both the environment and humans attracted a large number of researchers in hopes of quelling the possible and life-threatening consequences.

            One such project to be carried was an assessment program that was carried Proposal for the Gulf Long-Term Follow-Up Study, which reviewed the highlights of the September 2010 workshop that brought together concerns to solve the global menace (Goldman & Mitchell, 2010). The follow-up study acknowledges the attempts were made to ameliorate the issue through the use of dispersant and controlled burns feel these study lacked to integrate the potential effects on human health linked to the exposure of the spilled oil in the environment and to the fumes resulting from the spreading oil sand the dispersant used to contain the situation.

            In a broader sense, the livelihoods of those people who used to fish on the sea and oil workers were obviously threatened. These studies failed to explore alternative ways for these people to eke out a living with most of them suffering from mental and behavioral disorders. This is part of the US government, Department of Health and Human Services towards improving the conditions resulting from the oil spillage (Goldman & Mitchell, 2010).
            Another study that has been involved in the restoration of normalcy on the sea is The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI), a ten-year research program aimed at looking at the impact and providing restorations measures on the environment and public health. The research just as in the Follow-Up study covered five thematic areas which include: physical movement of the oil and dispersant used; the interaction of oil with the environment and the possible degradation; development of technology to alleviate the conditions and effects of the oil on human health. The thematic areas covered were more of the same in the Follow Study Proposal but in the Follow-up study, there is the inclusion of social-economic welfare of the oil workers and the fishermen who used to work in the Gulf of Mexico of the uncertainty to which the problem might last.
                                                                     Initiatives
            The National Institute of Health (NIH) has initiated initiatives to overcome these life-threatening challenges resulting from oil spills. In the follow-up study, NIH has recruited 55, 000 workers from the 150, 000 workers who volunteered to help in the cleanup process. NIH through the Institute of Medicine, (IOM) gathered a panel of experts on the review and made recommendations on the Oil spillage at the Gulf of Mexico. Among the reviewer included Tomas Aragon from the University of California and Rose Goldman from the School of Public Health at Harvard. These experts among others provided technical expertise in the areas in the process of overcoming these challenges.
            GoMRI, on the other hand, initiated several initiatives. One of them was Dispersion Research on Oil: Physics and Plankton Studies whereby two-four metallic tanks were built to simulate how the mechanism of oil movement under matter. One talk stimulates how the oil breaks into droplets and the other tank stimulate how the rising oil droplets interact with the plankton drifting in the water column. This helped see what happens when dispersant was added. Another initiative carried out was a modeling program to see the effectiveness of dispersants on the deepwater horizons to prevent oil from rising to the surface.

 

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