PBB: AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY

...By the time PBB was positively identified as the culprit in April 1974, almost a year later, Michigan residents were consuming meat, poultry, milk, and other dairy products containing PBB...

...These assurances backfired as a series of revelations— the inadequacy of the FDA tolerance levels, birth defects in laboratory animals, the presence of PBB in human breast milk, the widespread contamination of Michigan's food supply, and Dr...

...Selikoff s preliminary findings of a variety of adverse health effects among those most seriously affected— echoed like cannon blasts across the landscape...

...Later, when affected farm families began to complain of fatigue, illness, dizziness, and other problems, the state Health Department insisted that nothing was unusual...

...The national debate over environmental contamination is being dominated more and more by unpronounceable polysyllabic chemicals known mainly by their acronyms...

...Irving J. Selikoff, the world famous public health scientist, offered to study the human health effects of PBB in Michigan, but his offer was ignored for a year and a half...

...About June 1973, some 2,000 pounds of PBB, a fire retardant, were accidentally mixed into animal feed that was sold to farmers over much of Michigan...

...His account is illustrative of an all too familiar pattern of treating embarrassing political issues: 1. Ignore the problem...

...Chen discloses how the mix-up in Michigan was permitted to get totally out of control by state and Federal officials who ignored and bungled the problem until it was too late...

...Chemical problems are not intractable...

...After the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) set a tolerance level of 0.3 parts per million for affected cattle, farmers who destroyed sick cattle with lesser concentrations were labeled "outright kooks...

...He is not altogether wrong...

...The story isn't over yet, of course...

...Further study is a common ploy for pacifying the public...

...Much of this resulted from the difficulty of assessing and responding to risks rather than actualities...

...PBB: An American Tragedy teaches a great deal about how to handle such issues...

...The Michigan Farm Bureau, which sold the contaminated feed, and the state Agriculture Department blamed the farmers themselves for their sick and dying cattle, ascribing the problem to poor farm management and malnutrition...

...It is in the nature of a complex society that breakdowns are similarly complex in scope...

...5. Muddle through...

...An FDA study indicating adverse health effects among 40 per cent of 529 persons interviewed languished in FDA files...

...3. Study the problem, releasing favorable findings and suppressing others...

...The lesson the state has learned is to be more responsive," the director of the state Health Department told Chen...

...Although PBB is a chemical cousin of PCB, which has caused cancer in rodents, the PCB studies were largely ignored by state and Federal officials setting tolerance limits for PBB...

...John Dernbach (John Dernbach, an attorney for the American Lung Association of Michigan, has written on environmental issues for The Progressive and other publications...

...Except for studies in the early 1970s by Dow Chemical and DuPont showing toxic effects from PBB (studies which prompted these firms to discontinue PBB production), little was known about the effects of the chemical on animals and humans...

...If that is true, the book's warning contains hope as well...

...2. Blame the victim...

...The state Health and Agriculture Departments insisted that there was no reason for alarm, that the problem was being controlled, and that there was little evidence showing conclusively that PBB was responsible for adverse effects on humans or animals...

...A state Health Department study comparing a group of affected farmers with other Michigan residents found no adverse health effects among the farmers...

...Edwin Chen's remarkable book, PBB: An American Tragedy, describes how one such chemical — polybrominated biphenyl—caused the destruction of thousands of cattle, ruined many farmers, led to the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars, and contaminated Michigan's food supply to such an extent that most state residents bear traces of PBB in their bodies...

...The first accounts of sick and dying animals were dismissed by Michigan Agriculture Department officials and others as quirks resulting from natural causes, moldy corn, or "just one of those things...

...It took ten months from the accidental mixing of PBB into animal feed to its identification, and it probably would have taken much longer but for persistence, sophisticated equipment, and considerable luck...

...Selikoff s final report, issued after this book was published, found PBB in the bodies of 90 per cent of Michigan's residents...

...4. Minimize the problem...

...6. Justify failures by describing the problem as intellectually difficult...

...Cattle at affected farms subsequently lost hair in large patches, gave less milk, produced stillborn calves, died giving birth, or simply died...

...Chen's readable, sympathetic, and generally complete account is timely...

...In addition to the Michigan Chemical Company, which produced the chemical in that state, PBB was produced by two New Jersey companies...

...As Chen, a Detroit newsman, reports, the PBB story is not limited to Michigan...

...But, as one critic noted, the people in the control group also had PBB in their bodies, which made comparisons meaningless...

...PBB has been found in food or animals in at least ten other states...

...Regulatory agencies bear a particularly heavy load in this regard...

...Michigan Governor William Milliken, while acknowledging errors in the state's handling of the issue, has ascribed these failures to "the complex problem we're dealing with...

...Long-term health effects will not be known for fifteen to twenty years...

...A basic requisite, Chen emphasizes, is for government officials, business, and the media to respond with integrity and imagination...

...In October 1974, Dr...

...Throughout the controversy, officials insisted on dealing with the problem in small pieces, relying on hard information when such data would not be available for months or years, and not perceiving the possible counterproductive effects of remedial measures...