More Bad News For BP: Oil Cleanup Workers Getting Sick (BP)

In what will soon become another huge issue for BP

and the ongoing oil spill fiasco, a fisherman's wife from Louisiana broke her silence today and claimed that her husband is one of many contracted oil cleanup workers who are allegedly getting sick from their work on the Gulf. Kindra Arnesen, a wife of a Louisiana fisherman, is coming forward with allegations that working on the oil spill cleanup effort for BP is making her husband, David, and several other hired workers sick due to exposure to dispersants and vapors from the oil. Her husband David is one of many Gulf Coast fishermen who were hired by BP to assist with cleaning up the spill after being temporarily put out of business due to widespread contamination. Arnesen reports that her husband and workers on seven other shrimping boats working near her husband's craft have come down with nausea, vomiting, dizziness, headaches, lethargy, and other symptoms consistent with exposure to industrial chemicals similar to those being used in the Gulf. She claims that even now, a month after the symptoms emerged, her husband is still "not completely well". A BP spokesman claimed that the issue was probably related to food poisoning - a claim that Arnesen and others reject due to the fact that the men on the eight shrimping boats did not eat the same food and were geographically separated when they became ill. It is unclear as to how many oil cleanup workers are ill potentially as a result of working on the cleanup, but suffice to say, even allegations of this magnitude will prove to be highly troublesome for BP - already facing a criminal investigation from the U.S. Attorney General's office. What would make this situation turn from unfortunate to negligent would be if certain claims from Arnesen and others prove to be true - namely, the claim that BP prevented its contracted cleanup workers from wearing masks. BP currently disputes this claim and states that they did not restrict their workers from wearing masks while on the job. BP is currently up 1.57% to 38.25.