BP CEO Attributes Oil Spill Cleanup Workers’ Illness To Food Poisoning

The BP oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico is an incalculable tragedy and there is absolutely no silver lining about it. But if there were anything to at least laugh at, bitterly, in this mess, it’s BP CEO Tony Hayward floundering in the media spotlight, with every word spoken making his company more unlikeable. Yesterday’s Hayward PR home run: oil workers were not getting sick because of the toxicity of the oil and BP’s dispersants, they have simply gotten food poisoning.

Hayward responded yesterday to reports that workers have had to be hospitalized for dizziness, headaches, nasal irritation and other respiratory symptoms. While he admitted that he didn’t think they were faking it, and didn’t exactly deny the oil or the dispersants were toxic, he said he believed food poisoning was a “really big issue” and the likely cause:

“I’m sure they were genuinely ill, but whether it had anything to do with dispersants and oil, whether it was food poisoning, or some other reason for them being ill. You know, there’s a– food poisoning is a really big issue when you’ve got a concentration of this many people in ten pre-cabs, ten pre-accommodations. It’s something we have to be very, very mindful of. It’s one of the big issues of keeping the army operating. Armies march on their stomachs.”

Apparently in Tony Hayward Land, food poisoning of cleanup crews is a “big issue” just like the Gulf of Mexico is a “very big ocean.” At least after his comments CNN gives viewers get the satisfaction of knowing that their medical experts are not buying nasal irritation as a symptom of food poisoning, though the report doesn’t get any more cheerful as CNN correspondent Elizabeth Cohen relays that BP is not getting the crews gas masks, because they don’t believe that they need them.

Video of Hayward’s comments and CNN analysis below:

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