BP Oil Spill Linked To Heart Defects in Tuna And Amberjack: New Study

"Oil from BP’s Macondo well has again been linked to heart defects in embryonic and newborn bluefin and yellowfin tuna and in amberjack, key commercial, open water fish that were spawning in the Gulf of Mexico at the time of the catastrophic blowout, according to a peer-reviewed lab study released Monday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

"We can now say with certainty that oil causes cardiotoxicity in fish,"  said Stanford University fisheries biologist Barbara Block, who studies bluefin tuna in the Gulf, during a Monday (March 24) news conference about the study. Block is one of the authors of the study, which was published in latest edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."

Mark Schleifstein reports for the New Orleans Times-Picayune March 24, 2014.