Safe to swim after oil spill cleanup with chemicals

Hi, I hope I am not going to get 'jumped on' for this post, but last night on Australian TV there was a very disturbing programme about the chemicals that have been used to clean up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico several months ago, they were warning you not to swim or eat any seafood from these waters as the chemicals used were Cancer causing agents and apparently there has been an enormous rise in Cancer deaths since the spill, early in 2014 we are doing a 15 day cruise right down the Mexican Riviera and down to the Panama Canal and now we are thinking, swim on the cruise ship only and stick to meat dishes at all meals, does anyone know anything about all this?

Hi, I hope I am not going to get 'jumped on' for this post, but last night on Australian TV there was a very disturbing programme about the chemicals that have been used to clean up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico several months ago, they were warning you not to swim or eat any seafood from these waters as the chemicals used were Cancer causing agents and apparently there has been an enormous rise in Cancer deaths since the spill, early in 2014 we are doing a 15 day cruise right down the Mexican Riviera and down to the Panama Canal and now we are thinking, swim on the cruise ship only and stick to meat dishes at all meals, does anyone know anything about all this?

Ooops sorry, I have just checked the map of our cruise and we do not go anywhere near the Gulf of Mexico, please put it down to the fact that it is all a long long way from Australia!!My apologies to everyone.

The main issue with the "facts" claimed by your TV show would be, even if the cancer claims were true (which to my knowledge, they aren't), it is far to soon to say there is a sudden raise in cancer, and it is caused by the dispersant chemicals. Documenting a cancer surge and determining it's cause usually takes many years, frequently decades. It just hasn't been long enough to prove a cause like that.

Indeed the Mexican Riviera is NOT at the gulf of Mexico.