Oil spills on ecosystems have serious effects on flora and fauna. But there have also been studies that show that they also affect the health of the human being.
Researchers from the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA-UAB), the Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) and the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of the UAB have made a complaint about the effects that oil spills have on people's health in the population living near the extraction areas. The area corresponds to the part of the Amazon rainforest of Peru, where oil is extracted.
ISGlobal has ensured that people who reside in areas near oil extraction are in contact with toxic elements. They do so through the consumption of water and food contaminated by the activity and by skin contact with the agricultural lands that are affected.
According to scientists about 638 million people living in developing countries live close to oil fields, therefore they are adversely affected. Despite the fact that the number of people affected is enormous, the lack of studies on the subject means that the harmful effects that exposure to contamination from oil extractions has on human health is unknown.
The work prepared by researchers from ICTA-UAB, ISGlobal and the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of the UAB, has been published in the journal Environmental Health. This work contains an extensive scientific project developed by ICTA-UAB for more than a decade that analyzes oil pollution levels. The affected area studied is in the Peruvian Amazon near the border with Ecuador.
However, the scientific community criticizes the lack of studies on the effects of spills on people's health. The problem becomes more serious when you analyze that oil is spreading thousands of kilometers through rivers, sediments and soils. In this way, it also causes contamination in the food chain because they are bioaccumulative materials and pass through water to fish and from fish to animals and people.
Scientists have affirmed that only in the area of the Quechua and Achuar population there are 1.100 kilometers of rivers affected, 22% of the total. Thanks to cartographic studies, it can be known that this amount is equivalent to 2,6 million barrels of oil.
In 2003 this area of the Amazon rainforest was declared with a state of environmental emergency due to its bad environmental conditions. It was also declared in health alert status in 2013. However, to date, there are still no mortality records that are related to the effects of oil spills on people's health.
Marti Orta, ICTA-UAB scientist, has criticized:
“Despite the known adverse health effects of exposure to oil and other products derived from extraction, remedial or sanctioning measures have never been taken. Sick people cannot visit the doctor or go to the hospital. It just dies and it is not known of what "
Most of the studies that exist in this area have focused on analyzing the effect of these discharges on the health of the groups of workers in charge of cleaning. But it has not been studied in the resident populations of the area that are more vulnerable to being exposed to contamination for prolonged periods.
Cristina O'Callaghan-Gordo, a scientist at ISGlobal, said:
“It is important to study the effects that oil-derived pollution has on people living in extraction areas, since the times and routes of exposure are different. Furthermore, studies so far have focused on workers and they do not study the effects on the population that may be more vulnerable, such as children, pregnant women or people with previous health problems "