Facing Florida's public health crisis caused by toxic algae

Howard L. Simon
Beachgoers are few and far between Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2018, at Bathtub Reef Beach in Stuart. Martin County beaches were left unguarded Sunday afternoon after lifeguards began coughing due to a possible airborne irritant.

Hats off to Southwest Florida Congressman Francis Rooney for pressing the Centers for Disease Control to tell us what they know about the threat of toxic blue-green algae.

The dead fish that piled up on beaches demonstrated the impact of blue-green algae for the environment, tourism, businesses and, potentially, real estate values. 

But, finally, there will a focus on our public health crisis.

While more research is needed, the evidence is mounting and pointing in the same direction:

  • Blue-green algae are laden with microcystins that cause non-alcoholic liver cancer.  Blue-green algae also produce cyanobacterial neurotoxin BMAA, which is linked to neuro-degenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s, ALS and Parkinson’s. Drs. Paul Cox and James Metcalf of Brain Chemistry Labs reported that microcystin levels in samples from Lake Okeechobee and the St. Lucie canal were 300 times the level recommended as safe by the United Nations.
  • The University of Miami Brain Endowment Bank reported that BMAA toxin is found in the brains of people with neuro-degenerative diseases. 
  • Dr. David Davis, a neuropathologist at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, reported that monkeys fed BMAA developed early symptoms of ALS.  Another study documented that monkeys given BMAA developed the amyloid plaque and tau tangles that are the symptoms of Alzheimer’s. Last month, Dr. Davis’ team reported that detectable levels of BMAA toxin were found in the brains of dead dolphins that displayed degenerative damage similar to Alzheimer’s, ALS and Parkinson’s in humans. 
  • High concentrations of BMAA have been found in seafood from South Florida waters where blue-green algae blooms occur. Ingestion of BMAA-contaminated food is known to lead to Alzheimer’s and ALS.
  • Toxins in blue-green algae are airborne: Dr. Elijah Stommel of Dartmouth reported that people living near bodies of water with heavy blue-green algae blooms had a 15 times greater chance of getting ALS. Prof. Mike Parsons, a Florida Gulf Coast University marine biologist, found airborne cyanobacteria toxins a mile from retention ponds and three miles from the Caloosahatchee River. A study of air filters near water infected with blue-green algae along the Caloosahatchee River taken during the heavy blooms in 2018 by Dr. Larry Brand of the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Atmospheric and Marine Science is expected soon.

It is not alarmist to say that the people of Florida — especially people who come in contact with the infested waters, consume the fish and shrimp from Florida waters or breathe the air nearby — are being slowly poisoned. Liver cancer, Alzheimer’s and ALS are terminal diseases; the toxins in blue-green algae kill people.

Howard Simon

Rep. Rooney should not rely solely on government agencies and their scientists. While non-government scientists have been studying the causes, health impact and prevention of blue-green algae for years, government agencies, especially in Florida, have been slow to address the gravity of the situation. 

Scientists who are engaged in this urgent research should be invited to the roundtable that the congressman is planning to share what they know.

The roundtable should also focus on urgently needed steps to alleviate the problem.  This is a problem with many moving parts and many potentially catastrophic, unintended consequences. 

Quick fixes — i.e., “the Army Corps should stop the discharges;” “send water south” — are not possible or have disastrous consequences.

We need strategies that “prevent pollution at its source,” as the Florida Conservation Coalition urges. Because most of the water in Lake Okeechobee comes from the north and west, we need to focus not only on the polluted waters that contaminate salt-water estuaries, but on the pollution dumped into Lake Okeechobee that feeds the blue-green algae — especially run-offs of phosphate and nitrogen fertilizers from dairy and cattle farms, and human waste from failed septic tanks.

That will require political will to impose regulations on powerful interests. But, as the mounting scientific evidence is telling us, failure to do so is slowly poisoning the people of Florida. 

Howard Simon, Ph.D., retired in 2018 as the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida after serving for 21 years. He lives on Sanibel Island and is coordinating with a team of scientists on a project to clean up Okeechobee waters.