Gulf seafood deformities alarm scientists Eyeless shrimp and fish with lesions are becoming common

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15. Video reposted at Google+ . See original link for detailed article. Where are U.S. MSM reports?

https://plus.google.com/105152337151893753994/posts/bBFWCDZffsv#105152337151893753994/posts/bBFWCDZffsv

VIDEO

Brian Gauspohl
11:30 AM - Public

US Gulf Coast seafood deformities and mutations alarm scientists

It's almost two years since BP's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Now, scientists say they have found deformities and mutations among seafood and a great decline in the numbers of marine life. Dahr Jamail reports from New Orleans.

Louisiana LA Mississippi MS Alabama AL

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/04/201241682318260912.html?utm_content=features&utm_campaign=features&utm_source=twitter&utm_term=rss&utm_medium=tweet

EXCERPT:

A direct link

Dr Andrew Whitehead, an associate professor of biology at Louisiana State University, co-authored the report 'Genomic and physiological footprint of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on resident marsh fishes' that was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in October 2011.

Whitehead's work is of critical importance, as it shows a direct link between BP's oil and the negative impacts on the Gulf's food web evidenced by studies on killifish before, during and after the oil disaster.

"What we found is a very clear, genome-wide signal, a very clear signal of exposure to the toxic components of oil that coincided with the timing and the locations of the oil," Whitehead told Al Jazeera during an interview in his lab.

According to Whitehead, the killifish is an important indicator species because they are the most abundant fish in the marshes, and are known to be the most important forage animal in their communities.

"That means that most of the large fish that we like to eat and that these are important fisheries for, actually feed on the killifish," he explained. "So if there were to be a big impact on those animals, then there would probably be a cascading effect throughout the food web. I can't think of a worse animal to knock out of the food chain than the killifish."

But we may well be witnessing the beginnings of this worst-case scenario.

Whitehead is predicting that there could be reproductive impacts on the fish, and since the killifish is a "keystone" species in the food web of the marsh, "Impacts on those species are more than likely going to propagate out and effect other species. What this shows is a very direct link from exposure to DWH oil and a clear biological effect. And a clear biological effect that could translate to population level long-term consequences."