August 16, 2009For nine months in 1973 and 1974, thousands of Michigan dairy cows and other farm animals were contaminated with polybrominated biphenyl (PBB), a highly toxic fire retardant. A relatively simple mix-up at the company that produced both the PBB and an animal feed additive caused the massive poisoning of the animals and, in turn, the leaching of PBB into the food supply of Michigan’s nine million residents.
The Poisoning of Michigan, by Joyce Egginton, tells the tale of this mishandled and underreported crisis and its after-effects. First published in 1980, the book is being republished this month by The Michigan State University Press.
Working at the time of the disaster as New York correspondent for The Observer, a London-based newsweekly, Egginton happened across a small story buried in The New York Times on the widespread contamination. Intrigued, she dug further. Soon she learned of the enormity of the crisis and realized it would make a compelling book. She took a leave from the paper and set out to uncover the full story.
Dome spoke with Egginton about her experiences covering the PBB contamination and its ramifications and what she hopes will be learned from her book. Following are excerpts of that conversation.
Dome: Why reissue The Poisoning of Michigan now?
Egginton: So people can better understand the importance of knowing about the chemicals that are being used in day-to-day products. [The PBB case] was a misuse. It would not happen in the same way again because, after the Michigan disaster, a national rule was made that products that go into the food chain must not be manufactured in the same plants as toxic chemicals. You can never replicate a disaster, but you can learn from it and put in place some pretty firm restrictions…
[The contamination] is something that happened once, back in the ’70s, but I also think it is an ongoing danger. The book, I hope, helps people to understand that they’re living in a world in which there are far too many toxic chemicals being used on an everyday basis for all kinds of things that are probably unnecessary. They can get loose and they do get loose in the environment…
The same type of contaminant is in widespread use today. While PBB was outlawed after this disaster, it was replaced by very similar chemicals, with very similar formulas, as fire retardants. And fire retardants are more widely used in this country than in any other. They are in all our homes. Minuscule amounts of them do leach and are stored in the body tissues, so it doesn’t take a major disaster like Michigan’s to create something like the effect that most of us are subject to on a daily basis over a lifetime.
Joyce Egginton
Photo by Joan BarenIt is now mandatory that fire retardants be in carpets, the foam rubber used in furniture, curtains, dashboards of cars, television sets…The scientists who have written the [new] afterword of the book have raised the question, “is this overkill?”…There is always the risk vs. risk question… There are an awful lot of chemicals that we use that we simply don’t know their effect upon people.
D: Presumably, as an investigative reporter, you covered many interesting stories. Why did this story intrigue you enough to take a leave from The Observer to do the book?
E: One day I spotted in The New York Times a relatively short piece, down page on an inside page, which talked about there having been a contamination in Michigan and how the contaminant had gone into the entire food supply. I thought, that is a fantastic story, why isn’t it being played out more? It still stands, I believe, as the most widespread, long-lasting chemical contamination that ever happened in this country. For some reason it never got widely reported at the time. It intrigued me enormously.
D: It was so intriguing because it was so widespread and so underreported?
E: Both of those things. It was incredibly widespread…there were nine million residents of the state at the time and for nine months they were all eating contaminated meat and drinking contaminated milk. I began to ask, how can this happen? How do the authorities handle it when it does happen and what sort of checks and balances are there to protect the public in an instance like this? When I began looking at it I discovered there really were none.
There were authorities that should have been protecting the public but weren’t for a variety of reasons. The Michigan Department of Agriculture had two functions, promote agriculture and protect the public food supply. Those were at odds in this case. That organization failed in its function. And the Department of Health failed in its function because it didn’t understand the enormity of the contamination.
It’s easy to blame people, but what did they know about it? What was published? What was available? They were dealing with a chemical for which nobody had data about its effect on people.
D: What were the most surprising things you learned when researching the book?
E: The press surprised me the most. The Michigan Farmer did some very, very good reporting. They stuck their necks out and lost a lot of advertising but, other than that, I didn’t see any good reporting on this for a very long time.
And I looked at why [there wasn’t]. I think it’s because newspapers are basically urban organizations staffed by urban people. It’s a story that I don’t think news editors would like to send reporters out on even today because it’s enormously time consuming. You can’t send an environmental reporter out in the morning on an environmental disaster and have them come back that afternoon with a story…it’s going to take an awful lot of legwork, a lot of checking.
Newspapers were hearing from farmers that their cattle were dying, that something was wrong with the cattle feed and some of them sounded a bit crazy. You send a reporter out to talk to them and the reporter doesn’t fully understand, so they do what all reporters are taught to do, check with the authorities. They would check with the Department of Agriculture and the department would say, “There is nothing in that.” So the story didn’t get written.
That went on for about two years. And it took the big papers in Detroit a long time to tumble to the fact that this contaminated meat and milk coming out of farms a few hundred miles from them was going to the Detroit supermarkets and their readers were consuming it.
D: Do you think the media would do a better job today with a crisis of similar proportion and complexity?
E: That’s a hard question. I think they are far more likely to. They are far more aware of environmental issues today.
D: You write quite a bit about how government bureaucracy and budget constraints played a major role in the disaster. Do you think that would be true today as well?
E: There was really no way that the State of Michigan could have done the ultimate thing that would have been required — to slaughter all the cattle, indemnify all the farmers, seize all the meat and milk and cheese on the shelves and pay for what that would have cost. The federal government would not intervene or help because it was not a natural disaster but a man-made one and it was up to the chemical companies to be forced to pay…which was a nice, easy way out.
You can sympathize with the state authorities here — to a considerable extent they were trying to minimize the effect of this disaster on the people — and with the farmers who were suffering terribly and were exposed to the contamination without the state offering to help them, because there was no way, financially, they could cope.
That circumstance could easily happen all over again.
It took the governor at the time [William Milliken] about two years to realize what was happening because he was listening to the state agency staff who were downplaying it. And it was so outside anybody’s experience that you could have a contamination of that extent and not see it. It did go on for nine solid months before anyone figured out what was causing the cattle to die…It could have gone down in history as just a veterinary disaster. It makes you wonder how often something like that could happen without anyone knowing about it.
D: What do you want Michigan’s current policymakers and regulators to take away from the book?
E: I can only think of something that sounds quite trite…like that they listen to their constituents. But every issue like this that comes up has to be judged on its own. What I hope they do next time is a lot better investigation than they did for this disaster.
The Department of Agriculture, at that time, did not do much for the farmers…All too often the suggestion to them was that you must be doing a poor job of farming. Again, who do you blame? What was happening to the cattle — they were looking mangy, had lost their appetite, were aborting their calves — all those things could be symptoms of bad farming. It would be very hard for experts at the Department of Agriculture to spot that those cows were being poisoned.
I do think that [policymakers] have got to investigate entirely and to listen more carefully to complaints, more closely to the people who are telling what they see.
D: You are semi-retired; what are you working on now?
E: I’ve done seven books and am slowly working on a memoir…which is the kind of thing you do when you’re my age. I’ve got about three quarters of it done, so that is my preoccupation at present.
D: Are the other books you’ve written of the investigative reporting genre?They are all non-fiction, but they are very different…I couldn’t see the connection at first until it came to me that I have always had a fascination with looking at how a community responds when it is hit by a disaster. How does it cope and who become the chief figures?
It was very interesting in Michigan to see the people that got thrown up by [the PBB] disaster and who took leadership roles. In normal times these people would never have taken leadership roles — never. And yet, something about this got to them and made them feel like they had to act. And, it seems to me, that always happens. That’s part of what motivated me, though I didn’t realize it at the time — it was something that got woven into my own life very early on.
D: Did you contact any of the people involved in the crisis before republishing? Have their feelings toward the disaster changed at all?
E: The lawyers who fought the case [against the companies that produced and distributed the fire retardant] on behalf of farmers in the 1970s have said that the law hasn’t changed that much. One of their big points is that, if you are the victim of a chemical contamination, it is still up to you to prove that you were contaminated and that the contaminant was a danger. If you are the victim of a motorcar accident, you don’t have to prove that the other car hit you. It’s a known fact. They feel that the law hasn’t changed on that and should.
I’ve also been in touch with one of the major veterinarians in the case, Alpha Clark, who was devastated by the fact that many of the farmers who he served were ruined by this and have not been able to recover.
D: Your book dedication to your sons John and Stephen reads, “May their generation find a better way.” Do you think the younger generations are finding a better way?
E. I don’t think we have yet. I think we’re still searching…I certainly see an awareness among them [her sons] about the environment that I didn’t have at their age, and that’s all for the good. But the speed of progress of the age in which we’re living seems to keep overwhelming us, doesn’t it?
Bookworm Jean B. Eggemeyer owns the Williamston-based communications and marketing firm Carillon Communications LLC, serving the business and association communities.
7 responses so far ↓
1 Sylvia McCollough // Aug 18, 2009 at 7:42 am
It’s interesting that this reporter doesn’t mention how the documentary, “The Poisoning of Michigan,” gained the public’s and politicians’ attention to this critical issue.
My former husband, Senator Pat McCollough, was running for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination at the time, when members of his staff, including myself, but primarily Larry Tokarski and Dennis Muchmore, brought our attention to an English written article about the PBB disaster happening right here in our State.
No one gave it much thought, we couldn’t get any information on it from any State agency, the Insurance companies, or the State Administration at the time.
However, the McCollough family homestead was located in the Thumb of Michigan, specifically where the contaminant was first distributed to the dairy farmers, who were personal family friends. They brought this unbelievable situation to our attention, and as we began digging deeper and talking to more farmers in the Thumb, we discovered a frightening truth, Michigan dairy herds were being poisoned, and people were getting very sick! Including my husband’s father who lived in the Thumb and received fresh beef from his neighbors.
People were developing sores on their bodies; we saw cattle born with two heads, seagulls found on Lake Huron shoreline with deformed wings and feet, and people were couldn’t understand what was happening to their dairy herds that were dying off at an alarming rate.
Yet, as farmers descended on the State Capitol, the Legislature refused to accept what was happening and neither the Administration nor the State Farm Insurance companies wanted to bring this problem to light.
In the State Legislature, only a small handful of politicians argued that something was going very wrong with our agricultural and dairy industries….Senator McCollough took the lead and finally convinced his fellow Democrats that something needed to be done about PBB.
We came across a documentary produced in England that exposed PBB for what it was. This documentary was called “The Poisoning of Michigan” and showed that PBB was the worst chemical disaster to ever strike the United States….let alone Michigan.
The McCollough “group” fought to have this documentary aired on PBS but no media outlet would touch it….so, the McCollough for Governor campaign bought the film, brought it to Michigan, held a press conference and showed the film to the Michigan Press Corp.
I remember watching it for the first time in our Dearborn living room with Pat’s staff; we were all just sick at what we had seen…it was horrible. We were outraged that something so stupid had been allowed to happen in our State.
Once we broke the Story to the Press, all hell broke loose, and suddenly, PBB became THE number one Issue of the ‘Day.’ I think we still have the only copy of that film that came to the USA, somewhere in the McCollough For Governor files.
So, today, I’m impressed that this reporter chooses to re-release her book, but it’s also interesting that no mention of how this film came to Michigan, or the major role Senator McCollough and his team played in bringing this horrendous disaster to the public’s attention; also the attention of Governor Milliken via the McCollough campaign ads which were shown statewide, which would never have been displayed except for the diligence of a very sharp staff person, Larry Tokarski.
I once overheard a conversation between Governor Milliken and Mayor Coleman Young, in which the Governor lamented that the worse mistake of his political career had been the way he handled the PBB crisis…..and indeed, it was. However, to the Governor’s credit he admitted his role in this tragic development and did all he could to rectify it.
The terrible reality is this chemical never “breaks down” in soil or water and continues to accumulate. Hopefully, this will be a lesson, albeit very hard learned, that government agencies must always be on guard in their duties to protect the health and welfare of our Citizens.
2 Joyce Egginton // Aug 23, 2009 at 2:06 pm
The “English written article” that Sylvia McCollough mentions was most probably one of my own, written for The Observer of London of which I was New York Correspondent. This may well have been where the BBC also learned of the PBB contamination since, so far as I know, no one else was covering it in Britain in those early days of the disaster. By the time the BBC’s excellent documentary was shown in Michigan, in the fall of 1977, I was already under contract to write my book and well into the very complex research for it. It was happenstance that the BBC and I chose the same rather obvious title; otherwise there was no connection.
3 Shari (Johnson) Konkel // Aug 28, 2009 at 3:46 pm
It’s odd hearing that Joyce wrote this book about the PBB problem and never contacted the farmers whose herds were most heavily contaminated…namely, the Newaygo County/Fremont dairy herds. My father, Blaine Johnson of Hesperia, noticed our cows weren’t eating their grain anymore back in the spring of ‘73, and it took him talking with other farmers at meetings/etc. to discover that he wasn’t the only one with a feed problem. Ultimately it was a dairy/scientist, Rick Halbert of Battle Creek who identified PBB, but several months had passed in the meantime. My family has one of the highest levels of PBB in the state; my youngest sister was a bottle-baby at the time and drank milk from the tank, just like my dad, who loved milk, and the rest of us. Tara and Dad both had fat biopsies taken and blood drawn, and both have the highest level of PBB recorded in humans from this feed mix-up. Tara several years later was valedictorian of her high school class, and now teaches at Purdue University. She suffers no ill effects and to the contrary is very healthy. My dad is very fit and is 76 years old now. My siblings and I all have had several children with no problems.
My point is, yes, PBB was a disaster, for the cows that my folks had to say good-bye to as they were loaded up to be killed…no, although their hair coats were rough, and milk production down (not a surprise, since they weren’t eating their grain!), our cows did not get sick and die on their own from being poisoned. In fact, my parents were the only ones I heard of, who tried to SAVE their cows, fed them charcoal and phenyl barbitol which they were told would more quickly eliminate PBB from their systems. My parents were so disillusioned with the press, the state officials, the lawyers…they attended hearings, did all they could to save their cows and speak up, to no avail…the state kept lowering the PBB tolerance level and it became impossible to get our cows under this minute level, parts per BILLION. PBB was a disaster because it left its scar on my parents, made them cynical and wary, NOT because it made people sick. If PBB caused illness, it WOULD have made sick the people who consumed it directly. People in MI should have no worries…just keep an eye on my family–we’re doing FINE…others blew minor problems out of proportion, hoping to collect big $$ suing. I’ll never believe their stories of ill health, because I lived this story and I lived with people the most heavily contaminated.
The silver lining is that some policies did change as a result–Magnesium Oxide which is a buffer in dairy rations, and additives like this, will never again be confused with a poison, because they will not be in the same location.
I just wish Joyce had talked with those hardest hit, instead of concentrating on a few vocal people who had agendas, and probably never even got PBB directly like we did, or maybe TRACE levels, at most. She would have had a fairer, more balanced book. My dad is very intelligent, and loved his cows, and would have made a great story. Heck, maybe I’ll write my own!
4 Michael Schwab // Aug 28, 2009 at 6:19 pm
This is a very good response. In agriculture we are constantly challenged by other people about everything including herbicides, fertilizers, livestock manure and animal health. Why don’t the critics realize we are trying our best to feed the worlds population safely?
5 Marilyn Pokrak // Apr 18, 2010 at 9:26 am
The Saginaw County Road Commission here in Michigan has allowed their roadside brush control program to go awry. They hired a contractor to spray, and the roadsides in our township looked as though a nuclear bomb went off.
Our herb farm/private property’s frontage was kept mowed and trimmed, but that didn’t stop them from liberally spraying us. We found out in the spring of 2005 after the leaves came out that we were indeed sprayed in the fall of 2004.
The entire frontage of our wooded property had been sprayed with the herbicide cocktail, and we found out that they also sprayed at twice the concentration allowed by law. Additionally, our tests so far have shown that picloram and metsulfuron methyl are in our ground water and soil at least 300′ back from the road where they sprayed. To date they have caused 85 trees to die.
We have been fighting this since June 5th, 2005 by contacting the appropriate government agencies, filing lawsuits, and contantly trying to get the media to cover our case. Our court hearings thus far have been what we believe to be unfair, such as the judge denying us an injunction at one of our hearings.
After much turmoil, time, re-starting our business over, and so forth and so on, we now have a trial date of 5/13/2010 set. However, the other party’s attorney is all but threatening us that we will end up paying his fees.
All we ask is that they re-imburse us for the cleanup, agree to not spray within a certain radius of us, and pay for the damages our business has incurred. But yet they are not willing to settle out of court at a reasonable amount.
Any thoughts? We only have one expert for court – a forester – as the judge won’t allow us to procure any more experts.
6 lisa miller // Jul 17, 2010 at 10:25 pm
I lived in Michigan in the early 70s and was wandering how many people years later were affected by the poisioning.i know in 2001 i was diagnosed with leukemia and it was from chemicals the oncologist said that i had been exposed to.i never knew about this cattle problem until know.it is very scary indeed
7 Not Sherri // Sep 1, 2010 at 9:05 pm
Interesting, I also lived through the PBB situation in Michigan as a young person. I believe the food supply in Michigan is now as clean as any in the world. However, I have lived my life believing that PBB has had no effect on me despite all of the press. I am not interested in suing anybody and neither were my parents. I have lived my life as though it never happened. However, I keep enduring health issues that are very similar to what has been attributed to PBB and now am facing a terminal health issue. I have researched extensively but have run into many dead ends as everyone wants to sweep it under the rug. I went through all of the tests when I had no idea what was going on and I just wanted them to stop and nobody has the results now.. I just want to know that I’m not crazy, I’m sure Tara will want the same thing eventually. I actually think PBB stimulates brain function but that is just an unproven theory by a “dumb farm boy”. I wish the best to all involved, nobody is to blame, it is just an unfortunate situation that couldn’t be avoided by the time it was detected. My apologies for any grammatical deficiencies, I am not operating at full capacity as of this time.
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