Flesh Eating Bacteria BP Oil Spill Link Found

This report from WKRG might not surprise many people who follow the alternative media that has been reporting for years about the adverse health effects of BP's corexit but to hear the MSM finally admit this is surprising. A link has been found between flesh eating bacteria and the BP oil spill by scientists investigating the often-deadly disease of Vibrio Vulnificus, flesh eating bacteria, and what they found on the beaches off of Alabama and Mississippi in the oil spill tar balls washing up on the coast. The videos below examine this further.

A couple hundred miles away at Auburn University, Dr. Cova Arias, a professor of aquatic microbiology, conducts research on the often-deadly and sometimes flesh-eating bacteria Vibrio Vulnificus. Arias’ research at Auburn, and through the school’s lab at Dauphin Island, has focused on Vibrio’s impact on the oyster industry which was brought to a standstill three years ago by the BP Oil Spill. In 2010, out of curiosity, Arias set out to discover if Vibrio were present in the post-spill tar balls washing up on the Alabama and Mississippi coasts. She was highly surprised by what she found.

“What was clear to us was that the tar balls contain a lot of Vibrio Vulnificus,” said Arias.

Arias can show an observer Vibrio in the lab as it appears as a ring on the top of the solution in a test tube. Vibrio is not something, though, that a person can see in the water, sand, or tar balls.

But, Arias’ research shows it there, especially in the tar balls, in big numbers.

So we know that Vibrio is in the tar balls and in large numbers. What are they doing there? Does the fact that they are there have anything at all to do with Corexit, the chemicals used by BP and the US Government to break down the oil after the oil spill?

According to Dr. Arias’ studies, there were ten times more vibrio vulnificus bacteria in tar balls than in the surrounding sand, and 100 times more than in the surrounding water.

“In general, (the tar balls) are like a magnet for bacteria,” said Arias.

Arias’ theory is that Vibrio feeds on the microbes that are breaking down the tar.

She and researchers looked at tar balls that washed in to the same areas they had previously studied so they could therefore make valid comparisons to before the oil spill.

“What we also found was in water, the numbers were about ten times higher than the numbers that have reported before from that area,” said Arias

So the water alone had ten times as much Vibrio as before the oil spill, and the tar balls themselves had 100-times more Vibrio than the water.

What does the Vibrio mean for us, Americans, not only those of us who live in the Gulf Region but those of us who eat Gulf seafood as well?

Dr. John Vande Waa , an infectious disease specialist at the University of South Alabama Medical Center in Mobile says a person can get Vibrio two ways, by eating infected seafood, usually raw oysters, or by being in infected waters, either salt water or brackish. In this form, Vibrio is a fast-acting flesh-eating bacteria.

“The destruction in arms and legs, the flesh eating component, it’s two parts ,” said Vande Waa. “One is that the organism itself can destroy the tissues. The other is sepsis. The bacteria is in their bloodstream, it affects all the organs. Within my own experience of cases, the mortality has been approaching 40-50 percent.”

There have been almost two dozen cases of Vibrio in Alabama over the last five years, according the Alabama Department of Public health.

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