I have nothing to base this on other than a gut feeling, but 162 sounds like a “misunderestimate”:

(CNN) – Exposure to the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has resulted in 162 cases of illnesses reported to the Louisiana state health department, according to a report released Monday. Of those cases, 128 involved workers on oil rigs or individuals involved in the oil spill cleanup efforts, the report said.

Here is how these poor people are feeling: They have throat irritation, shortness of breath, cough, eye irritation, nausea and headaches, per the article. BP:  Beyond Poisoned.

But here is the sentence that stood out to me, because I’ve written about the subject so often:

Several of the workers who fell ill reportedly had been exposed to fumes from the dispersants being deployed in the Gulf, the report said.

But sadly, that’s not all. Physical illness and the lasting effects are horrific enough, but the emotional toll this is taking compounds the way too many problems from which the Gulf residents are already suffering.

Take a deep breath. Now read the following…

Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals Secretary Alan Levine, in a letter to BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles:

“Teams have counseled almost 2,000 people in affected areas, and are reporting increases in anxiety, depression, stress, grief, excessive drinking, earlier drinking and suicidal ideation [...] These are early warning signs of developing substance abuse and dependence, mental illness, suicide and familial breakdown including divorce, spouse abuse and child abuse and neglect.“

And if all that isn’t distressing enough, this was sent to me from Hugh Kaufman (AltaKocker on Twitter), senior policy analyst at the EPA’s office of solid waste and emergency response. Thad Allen admits dispersants make the clean-up virtually impossible:

…Adm. Thad Allen said… “We don’t have a large monolithic spill anymore. We have a disaggregation of hundreds of thousands of patches of oil.” [...]

[A]s the oil has swirled and broken up in the Gulf of Mexico currents, it has made finding and capturing the oil more difficult. Instead of one giant sheet, there are thousands of large ones, like the mass that made landfall Wednesday along eight miles of Pensacola Beach.

“The bad news is that it’s everywhere and it’s almost impossible to find all of those patches of oil with the skimming capacity we have in this country,” he said.

Drill baby drill!

Have a good day!