Newswise — A University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) environmental and occupational health expert on human exposure to toxic substances has recommended strategic training and monitoring of workers and volunteers exposed to the Gulf oil spill to identify, and possibly mitigate, human health risks.
Paul Lioy, Ph.D., professor and vice chair of the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at the UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and author of the recently published Dust: The Inside Story of its Role in the September 11th Aftermath, is among the experts convened in New Orleans this week to discuss potential health effects from exposure to the Gulf oil spill.
In New Orleans, Lioy was among the panelists discussing occupational health hazards for clean-up workers and volunteers. He specifically spoke about experiences following 9-11, routes of exposure and at-risk populations.
Lioy said it is particularly important that volunteers and U.S. National Guard troops involved in any spill response are properly trained and monitored to maintain their own health and safety.
“The first 64 days have been a period of gathering information, with agencies trying to deal with things on an individual basis,” Lioy said. “Over the coming days - not weeks - I suggest collecting and analyzing data and sharing information more strategically among organizations and agencies. Thus the solutions on exposure mitigation and prevention are linked to the engineering activities needed to keep the oil from reaching the shore and impacting both the public and ecosystems.”
It is key to determine if and to what extent people there are exposed to toxins and how to deal with those exposures, Lioy said. “Every day is a new day, in terms of exposure, and the goal is to mitigate the risk.”
Lioy said that mitigating risk requires those conducting training to recognize the changing context. “Some of the toxic elements from this oil evaporated into the air quickly. As oil ages, the mixture changes over time,” he explained. “Therefore, personal protection strategies and the monitoring tools will need to be modified as the situation for potential contacts evolves both near the release and farther away from the release.”
The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) is the nation's largest free-standing public health sciences university with more than 6,000 students attending the state's three medical schools, its only dental school, a graduate school of biomedical sciences, a school of health related professions, a school of nursing and its only school of public health on five campuses. Annually, there are more than two million patient visits at UMDNJ facilities and faculty practices at campuses in Newark, New Brunswick/Piscataway, Scotch Plains, Camden and Stratford. UMDNJ operates University Hospital, a Level I Trauma Center in Newark, and University Behavioral HealthCare, which provides a continuum of healthcare services with multiple locations throughout the state.
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