Riki Ott - Read with a Grain of Salt

Last Friday evening, I caught the last 15 minutes of the PBS program Need to Know with a report by Emily Senay, M.D. on the health effects of the BP oil spill. The report included interviews of heath and safety officials from BP, Louisiana State, and the Louisiana Shrimp Association. And two scientists were interviewed, Gina Soloman who is highlighted in Dr. Lemonade’s earlier post and Riki Ott, a Ph.D. marine toxicologist and self-described “Exxon Valdez survivor.” Knowing neither of these experts I gave each one a close listen (or as close as you can after a long week). Soloman spoke in measured tones about side effects, studies, and data gaps. Ott, more animated, talked about long term health effects that she observed among people who lived near Prince William Sound and worked cleanup of the Exxon-Valdez spill. She spoke of working with people for over 20 years and observing people “living with 100% disability to dead.”

Perhaps I should have been tipped off by Ott’s syntax compared to Soloman’s. But I was impressed by the title of her 2008 book mentioned in the PBS piece, “Not One Drop: Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill.” I jotted down “Riki Ott,”and went in search of a blog.

Google yielded www.rikiott.com, three blogs about the oil spill, and several YouTube videos of appearances on cable news. I’m afraid that, like the mainstream media who interviewed Ott on camera, I got snookered into following her train of thought by the alarm-sounding syntax paired with envirovocabulary. While I don’t discount her experiences in Alaska, I don’t think hers will be a credible blog on long term health effects to follow in the coming months. For example, in her first Huffington Post entry Ott says, “For two weeks, I've been in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama sharing stories from the Exxon Valdez oil spill, which devastated the community I lived and commercially fished in, with everyone from fishermen and women to local mayors to state governors and the crush of international media.”

Dr. Ott, sharing stories from 20 years ago with the people whose health should be monitored today is not scientific, it’s promoting an agenda. Her other blogs, linked below, pretend to reference reliable sources of data, but when you click you are linked to other advocacy sites. This is argument by acclamation, not data. Again, not very scientific.

Riki Ott versus Gina Soloman for following oil spill health effects - no contest. Like Dr. Lemonade, I’ll be following Gina Soloman and leave Riki Ott for MSNBC.

1) Need to Know, PBS, June 18, 2010
Story by Emily Senay MD on Long term health effects of the BP Oil Spill.
http://video.pbs.org/video/1525264389/

2) Riki Ott on May 17th
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/riki-ott/at-what-cost-bp-spill-res_b_578784.html
May 19th
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/riki-ott/human-health-tragedy-in-t_b_582655.html
June 11thhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/riki-ott/from-the-ground-bp-censor_b_608724.html