Researchers get grant to study seafood safety

GALVESTON — A group of researchers led by the University of Texas Medical Branch has been awarded a $7.8 million grant to study the long-term effects of the BP oil spill on Gulf seafood.

The grant was awarded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. The groups will include researchers from four universities; the University of Pennsylvania, Texas A&M University at Galveston, Louisiana State University and the University of Arizona all will be assisting in the project.

Also participating in the study are community groups United Houma Nation, the Mississippi Coalition for Vietnamese American Fisherfolk and Families and the Center for Environmental and Economic Justice in Biloxi, Miss.

The universities and community groups will make up the “Gulf Coast Health Alliance: Health Risks Related to the Macondo Spill,” which will focus on measuring the levels of contamination that remain after the 2010 spill.

The alliance will be measuring levels of the possibly carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in Gulf seafood and exposed human populations, said medical branch professor Cornelis Elferink, who will be the principle investigator on the team.

The goal is to determine conclusively whether eating seafood from the Gulf is dangerous for humans.

“Either we’ll be able to determine that seafood is not contaminated, in which case we can put a lot of concerns at ease ... or if it turns out that there are contaminants in seafood, then part of the study looks at the degree to which the contaminants are a risk to human health,” Elferink said.

Although the FDA declared Gulf seafood safe for human consumption shortly after the spill released an estimated 4.4 million barrels of oil into the Gulf, the new study will be examining different types of data.

Most previous studies have looked at a form of contaminant that is produced as a result of combustion or burning. This research will focus on petrogenic contaminants, or those caused by weathering instead.

“Most of the contaminants that will end up in the seafood are not combusted product but are the consequence of weathered oil,” Elferink said.

Weathered oil is the unaccounted for barrels that remain in the Gulf, dispersed throughout the ocean’s water and sediment.

“It’s a different type of contaminant, and it’s one that hasn’t been examined in any significant detail to date,” Elferink said. “Basically, the research done to date isn’t looking at what we see to be the significant contaminants.”

The alliance will be working closely with members of fishing communities on the Gulf whose lives and livelihoods have been affected by the spill.

“They’re in many cases subsistence fishermen, meaning they actually consume what they catch,” he said. “They want to know that the seafood they catch is safe to eat.”

Most of the communities involved are in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi where the spill had the most impact, Elferink said.

“The community is actively involved in framing the questions that are being asked, they’re involved in a lot of the science from the standpoint of subject recruitment, and they will be actively involved in results dissemination,” Elferink said.

Elferink said UTMB was the natural choice to lead the study because of its Gulf coast location and also because the university is home to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Center.

“There’s historically a strong environmental health science research emphasis on campus,” he said.

The researchers already have begun the process of gathering data about the fish, shrimp, and oysters in the Gulf, Elferink said.

“We’re actively setting everything into motion as we speak,” he said.