Jennifer Rexford Oil Spill Agitprop Video Debunked as Fraud

I live in South Louisiana, have spoken with those on the front-lines of the cleanup efforts and I am EXTREMELY skeptical of the credibility of Jennifer Rexford's claims made in a series of bizarre but apparently fictional YouTube videos.

Rexford is the ostensible identity of the woman who released a series of YouTube videos in which she fires off a litany of allegations involving her health and supposed misdeeds by British Petroleum (BP). These include an array of what she described as "symptoms" including but not limited to death.

The woman purporting to be Jennifer Rexford charges that she came down from her home in Florida to help with the cleanup and Gulf restoration efforts. She claims she has succumbed to a bizarre combination of severe symptoms resulting in death, although she did not specify if death had already occurred, was likely to occur or may occur at some point in the future.

In late October - when the cleanup efforts were wrapping up and well before residents and cleanup workers had five-plus months to recover from whatever ill-effects they did incur as a result of contact with oil and tarballs breathing in whatever fumes were present since the cleanup ended - I represented a top statewide elected official at a meeting of the Louisiana Shrimp Association in Buras, Louisiana. The shrimpers and fishermen were the initial first-responders and performed the bulk of the cleanup work, and virtually all of the high-risk work.

For almost two hours I sat and listened to the concerns being expressed by those on the front lines and not once did any of the 150 or so people in attendance express any concerns about their post-spill health some six months after they had begun their cleanup work.

[Photo: Jennifer Rexford, the woman behind the bizarre but apparently fictional videos]

If anyone should have suffered debilitating illness as a direct result of the spill it should have been the shrimpers, fishermen and oystermen of Southeast Louisiana. If anyone participating in the cleanup effort were to have come down with oil spill-related symptoms such as those described in the woman in that video it would have happened when they were being repeatedly exposed to the oil and had high levels of the associated contaminants in their symptoms.

The exception would be the potential the spill may have for contributing to multifactorial diseases such as cancer that could manifest themselves at some point into the indefinite future. Note the key words here are potential, may and contributing. The illnesses that would fall into this category are widely understood to be the product of a number of factors including but not limited to diet, lifestyle, genetics and any instances of unusual or extraordinary exposure to toxins, contaminants and such.

The shrimpers expressed concerns about the fact that it isn't known whether or not their involvement in the cleanup efforts will CONTRIBUTE to the development of diseases such as cancer, Parkinson's and others later on in life. No one once indicated that after six months of cleanup work they had experienced any noticeable ill effects from their work in the Gulf recovery efforts.

If indeed this woman's claims were valid, there would have been other examples from some of the thousands of people who had significantly higher levels of exposure than the woman in the agitprop video.

In addition to all that, there is the question of what if any effect the cleanup work had to do with the the woman's condition and its associated symptoms.

Severe neurological damage, paralysis, internal bleeding and death were the "symptoms" listed by the D-list propagandist appearing in the video. Nobody has contacted the local media or any of the numerous high-ranking elected officials both on a local and state-wide effort with whom I am close with. People who worked in the cleanup would be calling Billy Nungesser's office, the office of Senator David Vitter, Mary Landrieu's office and Bobby Jindal's office and demanding they take action, which I know for a fact any of the four above absolutely would should such a matter be brought to their attention (and be truthful and valid).

The woman made no mention of --- wait for it --- going to see a doctor.  It would seem logical that someone experiencing severe neurological damage, paralysis, internal bleeding and death would maybe consider going to the ER and getting a diagnosis and ostensibly medicines and/or whatever other treatments are needed to stabilize and/or cure the condition. [Side-note: It's taking everything I've got right now to refrain from writing in all caps and ending my sentences with series of exclamation points. The degree of this pathetic clown's bullshit may be eligible for a place in the Guinness Book of Records.]

The scary clown mentioned absolutely ZERO names of towns, parishes, locales and jurisdictions that would have inevitably come up had a real Louisiana local or out-of-town volunteer (or paid) cleanup worker been involved with the video. She did not mention Billy Nungesser's name, which she would have done had she been telling the truth.

Her story is completely inconsistent with the hundreds of people I've personally spoken with who actually were involved with the cleanup efforts, her symptoms are inconsistent with exposure to petro-chemicals, inconsistent with the symptoms of actual illnesses and inconsistent with each other.

This woman is 100% full of shit and needed to be called on it.

Due to the incendiary nature of this woman's agitprop, I decided it was best not to embed the video into this post or even link to it. The fact that over 16,000 people have already viewed it is troubling enough, and I don't think it merits the additional exposure. I will provide the URL though for anyone who wishes to assess the video for themselves: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MouIgUtgbgM

UPDATE: Bullshit Called on Jennifer Rexford Story

UPDATE 2:Why Newspapers Won't Report Jennifer Rexford's Claims