Gulf Coast Syndrome
A year after the BP disaster, some Southerners say they’re coming down with mysterious and frightening illnesses
“This is the best-hidden secret perhaps in the history of our nation.”
Dr. Mike Robichaux speaks into a microphone while standing on a truck bed in the shade of a massive tree in his yard in Raceland, La. He’s wearing a blue polo shirt and jeans, and his white-gray hair is parted neatly. The former state senator, known affectionately as Dr. Mike, is an ear, nose and throat specialist in Lafourche Parish and self-described “too easygoing of a guy.” But today, he’s pissed.
“Nobody is fussing about this,” he says.
Robichaux invited his patients and dozens of others to speak about their situations. Outside of neighborhood papers with names like the Houma Courier, the Daily Comet and Tri-Parish Times, their stories exist solely on blogs and Facebook — unless you visit Al Jazeera English, or sources in Germany, Belgium and elsewhere in Europe.
A Swiss TV crew asks me why U.S. media aren’t talking about this. It’s a good question.