Benzene and AML: What the Oil Companies Don’t Want Workers to Know
The mighty oil companies have come under fire in recent years and with good reason. When it costs almost 50 dollars to fill up the average economy vehicle and gas prices steadily going up, one gets the idea that natural energy corporations are on the very tip-top of Santa’s Naughty list this year.
Interestingly, there appears to be a new scandal on the horizon for the beleaguered industry regarding their link to Benzene and AML. Benzene, an agent that is a known carcinogen, can trigger the onset of acute myelogenous leukemia or AML. A fast progressing cancer, this particular disease strikes at the blood and bone marrow of the patient and is largely incurable. Sufferers may not even suspect they are ill as they only symptom that presents itself is a general feeling of a malaise or being run down. Other symptoms can include the propensity to bruise easily, fevers, chronic fatigue, aching in the joints and swollen lymph nodes.
Because the disease progresses swiftly, victims of acute myelogenous leukemia barely have time to acclimate to the diagnosis before they are undergoing chemotherapy.
How benzene and AML coincide is that the chemical is reputed to causing the horrid illness, a danger that has been known since 1920. strikes at the blood and bone marrow of the patient and is largely incurable. Sufferers may not even suspect the EPA took action and listed benzene as a hazardous material and harmful air pollutant. By this time, the connection to benzene and AML was well documented.
The oil company’s culpability comes into play because they have been allowing employees to use products with benzene in it although they were well aware of the benzene and AML connection. Despite these potentially lethal hazards, the companies used it as an industrial solvents and cleaners for years.
Any worker who has been exposed to the chemical should not only see a doctor for diagnostic testing, but investigate benzene and AML to understand what you could potentially be up against.
Yes, the big oil companies are not on the blue collar workers party invites and when one considers the fact that this industry has continuously been affiliated with large number of deaths for the sake of the all-mighty dollar, one would hope they, like fossil fuels, go the way of the dinosaur.
In the interim, we can only hope for a lump of coal in their stocking this holiday season.
