by Steven D Booman Tribune July 1, 2010
The latest chapter in the media’s ongoing struggle to cover the Gulf Oil Spill comes courtesy of PBS Newshour’s Bridget Desimone, who has been working with her colleague, Betty Ann Bowser, in “reporting the health impact of the oil spill in Plaquemines Parish.” Desimone reports that on the ground, officials are generally doing a better job answering inquiries and granting access to the clean-up efforts.But Desimone and Bowser have encountered one “roadblock” that they’ve struggled to overcome: access to a “federal mobile medical unit” in Venice, Louisiana: “The glorified double-wide trailer sits on a spit of newly graveled land known to some as the “BP compound.” Ringed with barbed wire-topped chain link fencing, it’s tightly restricted by police and private security guards.”
Ever hear of an American medical treatment facility masquerading as Stalag 17 before (I mean other than the one in the movie “Shutter Island“)? Of course, in Shutter Island the facility was an asylum for the criminally insane. I don’t think that’s the excuse the Feds and BP can use for the Venice, La. facility unless the toxic chemicals to which the workers have been exposed have turned them into raving zombies or serial killers. So, what gives? Continue reading