Once praised, settlement to help sickened BP oil spill workers leaves most with nearly nothing

Another testament how BP got away with not paying the true cost of their service sacrificing safety for profits and getting away with murder…

The workers’ experts relied on studies, such as those from the National Institutes of Health and the Coast Guard, that found people exposed to oil and Corexit were more likely to develop certain illnesses.

But BP’s experts maintained workers needed to show exactly how much oil and dispersant they had inhaled or ingested and that it was sufficient to cause their sickness. Greenwald, the attorney who helped craft the settlement, said meeting such a standard is almost impossible: “I mean, ‘How deep did you breathe? Right at the moment you were standing there, was the wind blowing?’” she said. “What mortal human would be able to testify about that?”

Most judges have sided with BP, rejecting workers’ experts as unreliable and effectively ending the cases.

Dale Sandler, the NIH epidemiologist, said its researchers went to great lengths to develop data on exposure like nothing ever been done before. “I’m not sure that they’ll ever meet the standards that the court is imposing on what constitutes evidence,” she said.