Joyce Egginton's 1980 book, republished by Michigan State University Press last year, is available in paperback for $19.95 at http://msupress.msu.edu.
The accidental poisoning of Michigan dairy cattle in the 1970s sparked the largest chemical contamination in United States history.
Nine million residents consumed contaminated meat and milk for a year after a Michigan chemical plant mistakenly added PBB (polybrominated biphenyl) – a toxic fire retardant – to dairy cattle feed, and distributed it to farms throughout the state.
In the Poisoning of Michigan – published 30 years ago – investigative reporter and author Joyce Egginton sheds light on the PBB disaster and how federal and state authorities failed to respond.
PBBs were banned in 2003, but equally toxic substitutes are still commonly used. The Michigan State University Press reprinted Egginton’s book last August to draw attention to the subject once again.
In a phone interview from her home in New York, Egginton discusses the impact of the book 30 years later and how the risk of chemical contamination is a long-lasting concern.
Q: What sparked the story?
A: “One day I picked up the New York Times and there was, way tucked on an inside page, a very insignificant-looking story placed down the bottom of the page. It talked about the fact that there had been a contamination in Michigan and that it was estimated that everybody in the state had, by this time, drunk contaminated milk and eaten contaminated meat. And I thought, immediately, why isn’t anybody taking more notice of it? So I proposed that I should go out there and write it, and I did.”
Q: What was the immediate impact of the PBB contamination?
A: “What had happened is that the whole quantity of PBB had gotten mixed in cattle feed. It was the biggest cattle feed plant in the state of Michigan and farmers from all over the state ordered their feed from there. With any sort of poison that people are slowing taking, the symptoms started appearing gradually.
“At first, it didn’t seem too bad. Then, after a few weeks or months, farmers were saying their cows were aborting and cattle were dying. Cows began looking deformed: their coats were mangy and their hoofs would overgrow. The farmers did the obvious thing of going to the Department of Agriculture and saying, ‘I’ve got a problem here. Can you help me?’
“The general view presented to them by the Department of Agriculture at that time was well, ‘You must be doing something wrong.’ Because in the early days, the symptoms that the cattle showed could have been put down to bad husbandry or poor feeding methods. Farmers weren’t talking to each other about their troubles.
“It was over a year before the state acknowledged that the problem existed. And even then, it didn’t know how to handle it. I’m not saying that in any way blaming the state of Michigan, but simply, this was something so widely outside their experience that there was no way they could know what to do. It’s like a bunch of doctors faced with a brand new disease. They started looking at the diseases they knew rather than looking for something they didn’t know.”
Joyce Egginton was a foreign correspondent for a British newspaper when she first wrote about the PBB crisis. Photo: Michigan State University Press
Q: Why was the PBB crisis underreported when it happened? Do you think it’s been covered fairly since then?
A: “Even at that time, although it was this little downpage story in the New York Times, there was nothing in any of the Detroit papers. The Grand Rapids Press started covering it very early, and did a good job. A monthly magazine called the Michigan Farmer did, but nobody else that I could see. At the beginning, it was thought to be the complaints of farmers that couldn’t be substantiated.
“It was an enormous story and no one was interested. I’m still, all these years later, amazed that that story has not been more widely told. Here is the biggest recorded contamination alone in this country – one that affected nine million people – and where have you read much about it?
“Not long after it happened, there was a story of contamination in a place up in New York state called Love Canal. It was a modern housing estate that had been built on top of an old toxic dump. Everybody had been told the dump was sealed and safe, and it wasn’t. After some years, the toxins from the dump started permeating into people’s homes and there was a high degree of illness, particularly among children.
“Now that got a lot of attention – a huge amount of attention. I reported on Love Canal. It was all contained in one place. It was easy to find people to interview because were all living in adjoining streets. They were all activists in the fight against the whole contamination issue.
“When you had come to report the Michigan story, what have you got? You got a farmer here, another farmer 50 miles away, another farmer a long drive across the countryside. I drove hundreds of thousands of miles crisscrossing Michigan, interviewing farmers. Newspapers don’t give that much time to a story. It took an awful lot of time. It wasn’t easy. Is that why it didn’t get better reported? I often wonder how many stories are easier to report get reported much better because of that.”
Q: What were the hurdles to gathering and presenting the material?
A: “I really had to learn how to report differently from the way I had been taught. This is true of any environmental reporting. As a journalist, I had been trained that once you get a story, always check it out with the authorities. Here you get a story that you go to the authorities – the Department of Agriculture and Farm Bureau – and they’re telling you, ‘Oh, look, he’s making a lot of fuss, we know about him. His farming methods aren’t that great.’
“That was a huge obstacle. It was an obstacle for me because I didn’t know about dairy farming. I studied it as hard as I could, and as quickly as I could, but I think it was an obstacle that daunted a great many journalists in the state. I always remember that the head of the Department of Public Health in Michigan saying later, several years later, this was something beyond their comprehension.
“He used the phrase: ‘We were mired in a swamp of ignorance.’”
Q: Why reissue the book 30 years later?
A: “This event in Michigan did cause PBB to be outlawed. It’s never been made since. And so there is a general reaction, ‘Well, Thank God.’ It’s caused this trouble – it’s no longer a menace.
“Now, one discovers, that what replaced PBB is a great variety of similar chemicals that are used as fire retardants without real testing on the market. They’re not tested on people and many of them aren’t even tested on animals. And they’re terribly widely used.
“This country has the highest incidents of these kinds of chemicals being found in people’s bodies. They’re used as fire retardants in practically every home. For example, it’s in the kind of foam rubber that is used in mattresses and armchairs. It’s used in carpets and drapes.
“Doing the job it’s said to do is a huge amount of overkill. OK, it’s a fire retardant but it’s poisoning people the whole time. It’s a good example of trying to come up with a preventive before you really find out what dangers the preventive can pose. I thought it’s about time to draw some more attention to that.”
Q: How would you have approached this book in 2010?
A: “In some ways, it would be easier to cover because there’s more knowledge in place. When they tried to settle this one by a lawsuit on behalf of the farmers there was no such thing as environmental law. Now, there’s more protection for the public. But the more protection is coming at the same time as the more exposure. The one is never catching up with the other.
SP
ECIAL FEATURE:
After the statewide PBB contamination, the chemical plant at fault, owned by a company now called Velsicol Chemical Corp., became a federal Superfund site due to contamination of a nearby river. See what an environmental policy expert has to say about its cleanup.
Shelley, if I’m not mistaken, this started about 1974…I left Michigan in the fall of 1973 to go to college out of state…it bacame an issue a year or two after I left. Unfortunately, I was there during much of the summers while I was in college, but thankfully, wasn’t consuming milk.
I had my first daughter in Jackson Mich. in 1976 , and she has had alot of medical issues all her life , from IBS to a mental break-down, and i’m seeing issues in my grand children..is there any end to this ?
The contamination happened in 1976.
When our children were growing up we thought we should have some chores for them to learn responsibility. So, we purchased some baby chicks from the hatchery in St. Louis, this was ’70’s to mid 80’s. Some of the baby chicks hatched with crooked feet, so badly, that they could not stand up. My mother-in-law told us not to raise or eat them, but to destroy them, there was something badly wrong with them. Hen’s eating and drinking — did the PBB get in the chicken feed that you bought at the elevator too?
Two sons, have had disc trouble in their backs, (mid-thirties) one son with digestive issues and he remains quite thin. We bought milk from a dairy company out of Saginaw who raised only Gurnsey cows. They are still in business.
Oops, I prematurely submitted the comments above.
My two questions are:
Have there been any individual lawsuits, not by farmers, but by consumers affected by the milk and/or meat?
Is there any way to test for BBS in ones body after all of these years?
My family, wifw, three young kids and I, lived just outside of Traverse City during the period–actually moved there in May of ’73 and moved out in April of’74. Among us we have suffered many of the aliments described above. I have two questions
I drove a truck in the late 1970s. I believe it was off of Mt. Tom Road/M-72 north of Mio, MI. They had trucks lined up full of dead cows. They had dummies of Governor Milliken and others hanging by nooses. The State Police were there in droves. People protesting were getting their heads busted. The traffic was slowed to a crawl. I seen one guy being escorted by police with blood running down his face. Their must of been hundreds of cows in all those trailers. They were like gravel trains. I remember people saying they were burying them in a clay lined pit there.
I lived in Michigan during those years. I remember it well. My daughter was born in 1974 and I breastfed her for almost 3 years. She has adrenal hyperplasia. I read a study that girls like her from that time, have periods one year earlier on average. She had hers at 9. She had many adrenal problems including high levels of testosterone, poly-cystic ovaries, hirsutism (excessive hair growth).She had trouble bonding with her children,like she has something missing in her hormones, even though she is “organic”, had her children at home, and lives a back-to-the-earth lifestyle. She is totally obsessive and anxious about not being poisoned again or letting her children be poisoned to the point of continually moving. Obviously she needs counseling about what happened, but her body has been permanently changed as has her psyche by PBB.
My mother died of Inflammatory Breast Cancer (IBC), and even though I was told that I had breastfed out the PBB of me, which I feel horrible about,I just had a biopsy for IBC. I have kept myself informed from afar, because I moved away to the west coast to protect my family. I talked to the head scientist handling studies in Michigan several years ago, and he said funding for generational studies were hard to come by except for some of the farm families. I heard of one still active study where the participants are girls who were in utero, and breastfed during that time, like my daughter. Does anyone know any participants in that study? I’d love to hear about the results. It would ease the grief my family deals with to hear that we’re not alone. I’m starting to think a lot of the mental illnesses in our young adult population is not Bi-Polar it’s PBB.
During the years of the PBB fiasco, I worked for an auto parts manufacturer in Alma and lived about five blocks from the Michigan Chemical plant in St. Louis. One of our foreman came down with a malaise which defied diagnosis. He consulted many medical specialists and was even sent to a psychiatrist to no avail. This went on for an extended period of time. He and his family lived on a small farm on the Pine River north of the chemical plant. Later one day his wife was reading a farm journal and found an article describing PBB poisoning and screamed at him, “OMG this is you!”He was tested and found to have one of the highest levels of PBB in his body among many who were tested.
We lived about 3 or 4 miles from a farm that had to deal with this catastrophie. I will never forget one Sunday the local news reported that The farm owner had shot his entire heard of cows to keep them from suffering. I remember that sight plainly everytime I drive by there. It was a very sad day.
I was born in Detroit in 58 and grew up in Jackson. I loved dairy products. I have had severe hypertension and raised ALT’s since my early 20’s. Al tho I have had many minor issues the raised ALT’s have always made the doctors scratch there heads. Ill feel lucky if I make it to 70 with only these issues.
I was born in Michigan in 1968 on a farm and grew up on PBB contaminated milk, it was all I ever drank. I have had so many weird issues health wise, such as gout when I was healthy and 30? Growing up with chronic pain out of nowhere including my liver, arms, had very up and down mental issues, horrible insomnia, but was somehow very good in school. Now I’m an alcoholic and my liver is gone already. Not that I haven’t earned a bad liver by excessive drinking, but it makes me wonder if my liver has ever been good. I can’t get any information about all these tests that they did on me, I don’t know where I went for them and my parents have always maintained there was no effect from it. Even though both had major personality changes and physical issues after. They did a long term test on my older sister who drank very little milk, but she doesn’t want to talk about it either. Every agency I’ve tried to contact never responds. I have always been curious what PBB causes, there had to be a reason the cows were dropping dead, calves still born, I remember seeing all of that!! I have my suspicions that all involved just made it go away with money and lobbyists. Anyways doesn’t matter for me now, but my sister is next on the list that probably won’t make it to 50.
PS: Rachael,
” IT WAS ‘NOT’…A ‘accidental poisoning’ of Michigan dairy ”
” Lord, Please,May We ALL Wake Up & ‘SEE’..THE REAL TRUTH” to the ‘Goverments Poisoning’ of the Human Population ”
“WE CAN NOT COVER OUR HEADS..EARS…ANY MORE,..TIME TO SAY ‘NO MORE’!
this is said, w/ Hope, Faith & Blessing’s,
an angelonduty
i have been terribly sick for 25 yrs+ w/ cfs/me, so i KNOW….how the goverment does not give a ! HOOT ! about those of us,who have been
CONTAMINATED, by ONE, OF THEIR (MANY)DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS !
Has ANYONE ONE done research into what “OTHER PLACES” WHERE THIS HAS HAPPENED ???
ODDS..100% …many other areas, the same thing happened !!
i am sooo sorry for ALL, who are so sick,trust your heart & DON’T let some ‘uncaring terrible rude dr w/ no knoweledge’ tell you “its all in your head “.. BS…follow your instint.
May God reach out & touch your Hearts, to those who are sufferings.
Blessings,
an angelonduty
i was born and raised on a small dairy farm i think somtimes why i have some of the health promlems i do now as a 40 year old man.we now and have been living in south ga. for 20 years.the many dr.say they just geuss why.i wonder if this has any thing to do with the milk…..
I was raising my family in Michigan in the 1970’s and consumed much PBB contaminated food. I’m now 65 and when I see so many people around my age with leg and knee problems, it reminds me of the cows I saw be slaughtered in the movie about the PBB problem in Michigan. Does anyone out there, besides myself, think there’s a connection? PBB affected the joints of these cow’s because they could hardly stand up. I don’t recall the generation before mine having these joint problems, do you? Think about it and please respond. I’m putting blame on PBB for my arthritis condition and my husband and so many others I know who are all born and bred in Michigan.
I have been sick and diagnosed with crohns disease and have saw numerous doctors for this, I also have joint, back, and other health issues which nobody seems to be able to figure out. I have lived in the state of michigan all of my life and was a baby when this contamination occurred, resulting in drinking a lot of contaminated milk from this time. I have been a part of this health PBB study in the state of Michigan, and then all at once I never heard from the state of michigan until a couple of years ago to inform me that everybodys personal information from that study had been compromised!!! The doctors I have saw all seem to go all out when I first see them but as time goes by they seem to back off especially when the PBB comes into the equation. It is my understanding that the chemical PBB traveled through the cows system and somehow Tuberculosis bacteria or germ transferred out of the cows udders, this has caused intestinal tuberculosis in people who dont even know they have it and it looks like other intestinal diseases, and the only way you can find it is by doing a special acid suave of the intestinal tissues. Anybody with these problems should look up intestinal tuberculosis on the internet. One thing is for certain there is a huge cover-up still going on over this issue from the state of michigan. The least they could do is offer people free medical care. Some of these doctors dont even want to discuss the issues. The part that really amazes me is why havent any of these attorneys brought a class action lawsuit on behalf of all the victims of this?
We live in central Wisconsin – on a dairy farm. I had never heard anything about this until this past weekend. An aquaintance told us that his farm had been lost in Michigan to this contamination. His cows were shot and buried. He moved to Wisconsin to start over. I also am wondering why more studies have never been done, how far did the contaminated meat and milk get shipped, etc?
go to:
http://books.google.com/books?id=n-YDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA19&lpg=PA19&dq=effects+of+PBB+Michigan&source=bl&ots=X3x5dxBz-6&sig=l6wtKnJv4cJg5KCiGPzyzsClbZU&hl=en&ei=VPKZTdazIK610QGZ_vTkCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CDkQ6AEwBDgK#v=onepage&q=effects%20of%20PBB%20Michigan&f=false
This is what was happening in May, 1977. Good reporting, good piece of history.
Adding to my post: Also, I suffer from sever pain at night in arms, neck and hands. I have unexplained swelling in my lymph nodes including throat and groin area. I also suffer from high epstien barr levels since puberty. I was in special education thru my school years. At that time, my mother was living in Ada Michigan and Big Rapids Michigan areas. For many years my mother has spoken of the PBB contamination during the time that I was concieved and born. She also informed me that it went on for an entire year before anyone was informed of the contamination, and that she was consuming milk and meat products through out the year. I decided to look up information reguarding PBB, and found that there have been many people affected by this. I would like to know what they are doing about it. I would like to be part of a study for I know that this has affected my entire life. I feel as though everyone that was affected by this higly toxic chemical who has suffered there whole life should be compensated by the state of Michigan or government.
I was concieved in 1973, born in 1974 in the state of Michigan. I have suffered my entire life from ear, nose and throat problems, esophagus, digestion and bowl problems. I also have auto-immune disorder. I have been on pain medication since I was pre-teen due to chronic pain in my neck, back and knees. I have spinabifida and osgood slaughters disease. I suffer from inflamation in all my joints including ganglion cysts. I was never able to participate in sports or keep a job due to my lack of an immune system. If I get an illness it keeps me down for months and usually ends up turning into pnemonia.In April of 2010 I found out I have a moderate-size tumor on my pituatry gland in the brain. The quility of my life is in question all the time. NOTE: My mother has talked about the PBB for many years and insist that it is the reason for my conditions. I am the only one of all my siblings with these health issues. How do I find out if my life has been affected my PBB? Is there testing out there for this highly toxic chemical and how do I find out diagnosis and treatment. Please help. Thank You for your time. Note: Silently suffering in Michigan
Sincerely
Rhea A. Gibson
616-633-8247
r.a.gibson@hotmail.com
I lived in Michigan with my husband and 3 young children from 1972 to 1982. My husband had kidney cancer two years ago and my 21 year old granddaughter had cancer surgery a month ago on the same kidney. The surgeon said she was the youngest patient he had ever had for that and was suspicious. My daughters and myself have had numerous problems including thyroid, joint pain, and other problems. The cancer in such a young woman concerns me. We didn’t know there was a problem until all milk and meat were taken off the shelves.
Lived most of my life in lower michigan area, farm country. Remember hearing about the contamination when I was a teenager but not much. Began having terrible bowel problems in 1972. Told it was all in my head. Years later was diagnosed with colitis, bleeding from bowels. Have had years of mental problems depression, anxiety. Wonder now if all related to contamination? How do we get Erin Brocovich on this case? Sure do wish somebody would do something. Now am worried about my children, which I also breastfed and my Grandchildren.
Watched the movie again, Bitter Harvest. All about this PPB, in the movie, with Ron Howard, you couldnt tell where it was. I had to search the net to figure it out. I wonder how far the meat and milk went outside of MI too?
dude that sucks a cemical that stays in ur body n couses helth problems n u wont know that thats the cause + with no way 2 get rid of it that really sucks.
Kalkaska Landfill info can be had here……
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1637458/pdf/envhper00480-0034.pdf
I remember that the state buried many of the contaminated cows–I think on state land in northern Michigan. Does anyone recall the exact location? Have any studies been done to determine the amount of PBB which leached into the soil and groundwater?
I am the mother of a female child born in 1974 in Battle Creek, MI. I was told by a teacher when she entered school with learning disabilities that a large percentage of the children born then were having problems. We made it thourgh school with lots of turtoring. Now my daughter is having serious mental health issues. I am wondering is anyone else?
adding to my comment I also have a lot of joint pain.Still have stomach problems intestinal troubles.It is a shame they let this go on and remember a lot of deformities in children from those days.Like to know more about this .The disc are gone in my neck and back and I have alot of problems sleeping at night from the pain.yes i got to read that book.I believe there are a lot of LIES and COVERUPS on this.My oldest daughter has alot of these symptoms also, she just turned 30.
When I was about 8-9 yrs old I lived in the neighborhood of Delray,in Southwest Detroit right behind Fleetwood Fisherbody Cadillac plant and remember going to Great Scott in precinct 13 and there was no milk products on any shelf wondering mom went to other stores and there wasn’t any to be found.I remember watching on TV about them herding the cows in a huge hole and killing all the cows it was on a local chanel we did get Canadian channels.In 81 mom moved out of state but since she died from cancer of the broncial tubes in 86.I have had Thyroid problems and was on medication for many years every now and then my gland on the lft side of my neck swells and tends to be short tempered when this happens. .Then the Dr found from a blood test that I have P.A.D. with a lot of mri’s and some dye they found I have 100% blocked artery that feeds my left arm I suffer with this everyday and also have Rey Naulds Disease which can be very painful when my fingertips go white feels like frostbite and are gonna blow off. I use to hear that the poisoning was from cropdusting that was done in the 60’s-70’s.I’m only 45 but feel 70.When i was a toddler mom said when I ate it went right thru me and said I’d scream bloody murder she took me to a faith healer in Macon Ga and said the healer said there was a young child in the audience with kidney/bowel trouble mom didn’t take me up cause she and the Dr.s didn’t know what it was (this may sound strange to some but here is what she told me)when they went to get in the car she heard a voice tell her raw cows milk so she went to a farm(were in Georgia now)and got the milk blanched it and said I was constipated for the first time in my life this was in 66-67.I read an article a yr or so ago and I have many of the symptoms.in 2000 I became sick again with diareaha and have fought it for over 10 yrs makes me wonder how bad I have it and how long.
adding to my response my mother tried to do something in the 70″s when all 3 children became very ill. they did nothing to support her issue. there is no one in my family with thyroid problems. my sister has a very rare throat disorder and since has had her esaphagus removed. all problems started when we were 18 yrs old. i have tried to do research over the years to no avail. i believe it was all caused by the contamination of pbb.i would love to do something about this cover up and politics of this state. it was turned on the farmers and said they were the ones at fault. lrt mr tell u if i had known or could have helped my parents move forward i would have.this has ruined my life and my familys also.
i lived in kalkaska michigan in the 70’s. since i have lost my thyroid at 18 yrs of age. 2 hip replacements. and now cancer in my neck. this contamination needs to be recongized. there are many sick people. my sister has also problems and has lost her esophagas’ my brother has serious stomach problems.
As I recall, the state of Michigan tried to hide the origin of the contamination. When a Canadian T.V. station came here and exposed all the things that were being covered up. People that were trying to get answers (farmers, doctors,) were threatened and told to keep quiet. Has anyone done any health follow ups?
I was born in Mid-Michigan in 1966, and lived there until 1986. Just a few months ago, I watched “Bitter Harvest” on Hulu. It grabbed my attention so I Googled some info… I was horrified to find out this was based on contamination in Michigan! I am concerned about my health and my children’s health. Can anyone give me specifics on which tests to request via my doctor, any specialists I should see, etc.? I am sure this situation never crossed my radar… I wonder now whether my parents just kept my siblings and me sheltered from it. Scary stuff.
I lived in michigan in the 1970’s and have been sick every since then and doctors cant seem to find out why? so they tell me its in my head but i dont see how bleeding from every where is in my head and balance problems and not wanting to eat with stomch pains for many many years it started in 1973 and now is better but still not right i dont see how this is in my head can anyone tell me how to see if this is from bpp?
I attended GVSU,Allendale in 1972-1973, eating in the college cafeteria and drinking lots of milk. Does anyone know exactly when this all started? I am an 8 year breast cancer survivor. My gene tests came back negative. I remember hearing of it at the time and always wondered about future health issues for all Michigan residents.
I also lived in Michigan throughout this time and had two children. I breastfed both of my children. My son and daughter have had digestive problems since birth and now my daughter is having issues with a possible auto-immune disease. I would love to talk to Kim and see if we have any simularities, and could possibly brainstorm.
We, in this country are at the mercy of the business/industrial complex, especially in areas that require stringent regulation by government. In those areas of the economy the corporations do their utmost to subvert any gov’t oversight. It happens in the food industry and, of course, the latest and greatest example of subversion of gov’t regulation, BIG OIL and the economic, health and environmental catastrophe in the Gulf Of Mexico. There, a whole way of life and economic dependence has been destroyed, not to forget the destruction of an entire marine, estuarian, and terrestrial ecosystem. All because politicians and bureaucrats of a particular persuasion gave carte blanch to an industry that owned them, and succeeding politicians cared not to investigate authenticated complaints. Our democracy has been sacrificed on the altar of personal, corporate and political greed, and we have only ourselves to blame.
One son (and myself) also have an autoimmune disease and elevated liver enzymes. My other son (and myself) have multiple digestive problems without being able to find a diagnosis.
I lived in Michigan during the 70’s. I ingested a lot of dairy products during two pregnacies. A lot of the PBB left my body through breast milk but then was in my boys. My mother, children, husband, and myself have had many large cysts removed that were filled with PBB. Future medical implications worry me.
Why are those responsible not brought to justice?
My uncle raised beef cattle near Midland during this period and fed his stock the PBB tainted feed. When he discovered his cattle were contaminated, he excavated a trench, ran the entire herd into it and shot them all rather than put them into the food chain. The event haunted him for the rest of his life. Shortly after, he tore down his silos and quit the business that he and my grandfather had operated as the Michigan Beef Company for decades.
There is ample evidence that chronic low dose exposure to brominated and chlorinated compounds will elicit a variety of adverse health effects in both human and non human populations. These adverse impacts occur at the genetic level and go far beyond the simple transient effects industry would have us believe.
Toxaphene and DDT, both widely used and banned chlorinated pesticide found leaching into the Pine River from the Velsicol site, are known endocrine disrupters. In Florida at Lake Apopka where toxaphene and DDT are also present, the legislature elected to remain inactive until it was discovered that the pesticides were causing a mutation in the male alligators that decreased the size of their penis. A sudden concern by the largely male legislators that this effect could be species non-specific caused a flurry of legislation to address the problem.
Cancer, liver damage and other disease couldn’t convince them to move but mention a shrinking weenie and all the stops get pulled out. Go figure….
I’ve read the book, and it is excellent. Do you know it took only about 3,000 pounds of PBB to contaminate the human and animal population of Michigan? And do you know that the manufacturer of PBB, Velsicol Chemical Corp., illegally buried over 269,000 pounds of PBB in the local landfill? That landfill, located in Gratiot County, Michigan, has been a Superfund Site since 1982. The landfill has leaked repeatedly. It has no liner, even though a 1976 law required landfills to be lined. It is a second PBB disaster waiting to happen.
I began working for the Michigan Department of Public Health in 1980’s, only a few years after the “PBB Disaster”. I was hired to investigate the health effects of PBB on state residents. I talked to many farmers who told me stories about their sick and dying livestock and how Farm Bureau and the Department of Agriculture did nothing more than blame them for mismanagement or not knowing how to take care of their own livestock. These were not new farmers, but farmers who came from farm families who spent generations raising dairy cattle and other livestock. I believe the reason Farm Bureau and the Department of Agriculture told the farmers they were lousey farmers was because of the potential litigation they (FB & MDAg)were faced with by the farmers and many thousands of citizens who were poisened by PBB. They were covering their own butts. We did studies on farmers as well as citizens who had nothing to do with farming operations. The citizens were part of a control group. Guess what? Literally everyone who lived in Michigan during those years in the 1970’s whose blood we tested had some level of PBB in their blood and bodies. PBB will not easily leave ones body either because it mixes with and is stored in fat cells. Bottom line is this: when it comes to disasters like this, the powers that be, unfortunately, are more worried about their legal responsibilities than human life. Sorry but that is the sad truth. Oh yeah, I bought Joyce Egginton’s book “The Poisoning of Michigan” many years ago. My hat is off to her for her enormous efforts in getting the information she needed to put this book together.
Has anyone even STARTED to think about the fact that most landfills are designed to last about 30 years? And that these landfills were mostly placed in sandly areas -where migration is more likely?
I think that stories like these are so important considering the current state of our food system. Documentaries like Food Inc. and stories like these are hopefully going to get more people to ask questions about the source of they food that they consume. Keep up the good work.
This is an interview with the author of a book about an immensely complicated environmental story. It is not an article detailing that story. Indeed, that would take a book, and many have been written about this issue – including the one written by Egginton.
Those who want the full story – including the role of Farm Bureau – may want to check it out.
I am a bit disappointed by the tone of this article. Saying the state of Michigan was unprepared and responded slowly to this incident is like saying the Holocaust was a misunderstanding. I lived in Big Rapids during those years and worked for a doctor whose patients were largely farm families, many of whom dealt with PBB contamination on their farms. We watched our patients deal with pain, anger, frustration and fear. They were lied to, bullied, threatened….and so were we because we had the medical records and did the testing to support their claims. It was a frightening and terrible period in Michigan history as, initially, they tried to cover it up. The doctor I worked for had two german shepard dogs and lived in the country. The dogs went missing and he received a 3am call on his private line telling him his children would be next if he testified in Washington, DC. (he sent his children to live with relatives out west for the summer) The office was ransacked in the middle of the night, not for drugs but for patient files (he kept them in a secret place). Blood tests for PBB levels came back negative from Michigan labs, until they were informed we took two samples and sent the other one to California and received positive results from them. (After that the samples matched)The local police would escort him where ever he went until after the hearings in DC.
After all these years, reading this article, bringing it all back, I still cry. I won’t even go into the illnesses we saw in our patients. Farm animals were not the only ones who aborted, and died very young, and wasted away from liver failure. These people ate the meat they raised and drank the milk from their cows. They were primary recipients of the contamination.
I remember one woman who raised chickens. Their feathers were falling out, they could not stand on their own legs, and she was selling them to a large company for human consumption. She cried as she told me she knew the chickens were bad, even though they passed inspection and every government agency told her there was nothing wrong with them, but she had to sell them because the bills were piling up, they were out of money and would loose their business and home if she didn’t. Another man, suddenly incapacitated by arthritic symptoms and liver damage, was told that if he signed a form promising to never sue Farm Bureau for his illnesses, they would send him to another doctor who would guaranty him disability payments for life.
There is a huge hole in this story – the omission of the role that the Michigan Farm Bureau played from the very start.
There must have been some degree of media coverage because I lived in New York/New Jersey at the time and I heard about it. I may have been more attentive when I heard about a Michigan and environmental story than others might have been (I attended high school and college in W Michigan), but someone was definitely doing that reporting — it seems to me the NY Times was on it.
I also remember that there was TV coverage of the Dupont and Hooker Chemical contamination in Whitehall-Montague area on New York City channels. That was a bit later, as I recall.
Anyway, this story was a good journalistic effort about a GREAT journalistic effort. I intend to buy the book. Thanks.
I was working in a dairy lab on msu campus during this era, and were part of a study to determine the effectiveness of various treatments in decontaminating the exposed cows. Naturally, I handled many samples of contaminated meat.
A few years later, when we started our family, I had my breast milk analyzed by the health department, per recommendation, and found it tainted with pbb. But because there was no knowledge of what levels would be considered harmful, I was advised to breastfeed my children because the benefits would outweigh any possible (unknown) detriment. So I did. Two of my five children have thyroid disease ( never a problem on either side of the family before) and a third has elevated liver enzymes and multiple digestive troubles, cause unknown. These problems were not diagnosed until their late teen years. A few years ago A coworker at the time turned out to be one of the children of a dairy farmer whose herd had been contaminated; as such she is part of a study of lingering health effects. Through contact info from her I tried to retrieve the data on my own breast milk analysis but was told by the state health department all those records were long gone. Meanwhile, my younger coworker’s child has been diagnosed with severe and rare autoimmune troubles.
I have trouble believing this is coincidental but it appears no one is actively studying the truly longterm effects of that pbb trouble so many years ago…