Cleanup crew vessels stand in oil-slicked water 30 days after the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf Of Mexico on June 9, 2010. (Photo: Green Fire Productions)

On April 20, 2010, BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded. Over the next 87 days, it gushed at least 200 million gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, creating the worst human-made environmental disaster in US history and afflicting the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.

Less than one year after the disaster began, I spoke with Fritzi Presley, a Gulf Coast resident in Long Beach, Mississippi, who was already very sick at the time. Her doctor was treating her for bronchitis…