The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; Michigan PBB's

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. If a tornado hit your state tomorrow, destroying homes, businesses and farms, your governor would probably be on the phone to Washington within hours asking for and getting federal disaster relief. But the federal government is not geared up to respond to a new kind of disaster, chemical contamination.

Three and a half years ago, a highly toxic chemical, PBB, found its way into the feed of thousands of cattle and other farm animals in Michigan. In every sense, loss to farmers` property and danger to human health, it was a disaster, but three and a half years later the federal government is just beginning to formulate emergency plans for future such incidents.

Tonight we examine how the government should respond by looking more closely at what happened in Michigan. Jim?

JIM LEHRER: Robin, PBB stands for polybrominated biphenol, a highly toxic compound that is normally used as a fire retardant. It is also used in the manufacture of some hard plastics. Last June, Public Television Station WGVC in Grand Rapids, Michigan with a grant from the Michigan Council for the Humanities made a documentary that traced the public and governmental response to the PBB accident that occurred in the summer of 1973. Here is an excerpt from that report, narrated by the Producer, Peter Karl:

MICHIGAN PBB FILM

PETER KARL: A Battle Creek farmer discovered that his dairy herd was suffering some very strange disorders, and many cows were dying. It was April, 1974 that this strange poisoning was identified as polybrominated biphenol, or PEB. On July 3rd, 1974 the shock :rave of the PBB problem started to echo across the state. Massive burial graves were dug, and dairy cows by the thousands were processed and destroyed one at a time. The cite was in the southeast corner of Kalkaska County. During the first three weeks alone, the Michigan Department of Agriculture killed some 5,000 dairy cows, 70 percent of which came from Grade A herds. The problem didn`t die with these cows, it festered like an infected sore, and it`s not cured yet.

LOUIS TROMBLY (farmer): This is a bigger cover-up by the state government than the Watergate was with the federal government.

KARL: Why do you say that?

TROMBLY: Because they are not only cheating the farmers on the cattle they poisoned, they are cheating the consumer on the poison they are trying to feed them. They are trying to tell you, "A little bit of poison is not going to hurt you." We all know, better. We have seen our cattle die in 30 months of little traces of poison. We`re going to see our people die. They cannot consume poison day after day without having some harmful effects to them.

KARL: Just two days after the reports from Kakkaska, there came reports of law suits. A court order halted the burial of the cattle already killed. m. attorney representing a group of dairy farmers filed a multi-million dollar law suit against Michigan Farm Bureau, the agency that distributed the faulty feed to the farmers. Local officials expressed concern that the contaminated livestock buried in their back yard would also contaminate their land and water supply after the dead cattle decayed.

The herds destroyed at Kalkaska were contaminated with high levels of PBB, but some farmers are still saving that play continues at low levels.

CLYDE CLARK (farmer) : I have had four of my top producing cows in the herd, from 24,000 to 20,000 pounds, lay down and die. They go down, they`re paralyzed, they can`t even get up, and the veterinary works with them and works with them, and nothing brings them back. Then you open them up, every one of them that`s died has had a liver that`s damaged, plus every one of them in the marrow of their bones or in the fat tissue, have from .01 to .05 parts per million of PBB. And to me, that`s kind of low levels.

KARL: The PBD problem started during the energy crisis. The Michigan Chemical Company made two products at its plant in St. Louis, Nutricaster, magnesium oxide a chemical nutrient added to livestock feed, and Fire Master, a fire retardant which contains the PBB mixture. The two substances were normally bagged in color coded bags, but during the paper shortage caused by the energy crisis, the bags were hard to come by. Finally, there was an accidental mix-up during shipment. The PBB mixture was delivered to Farm Bureau Services, and consequently mixed into livestock feed sold across Michigan. Farm Bureau Services sued Michigan Chemical for two hundred million dollars because of the error. The suit stated they had no idea how much PBB was involved in the mix-up. An estimated 350 tons of suspected PBS contaminated feed was pulled off the market in `73 and `74, however Farm Bureau Services never reported it to the State. They didn`t have to. There were no laws governing such actions then like there are not. But even without laws, some question of whether or not the company had an ethical obligation to report it.

ELTON SMITH (Farm Bureau) : As soon as in April when this was discovered and what it was, Farm Bureau Services cooperated 100 percent by furnishing the Michigan Department of Agriculture all of the information where any teed had been sold, the names of the patrons, the amount, the kinds of feed, anything. The Farm Bureau Services whole record area was an open book.

KARL: In May, 1974 a PDB level of one part per million was set as the guidelines in meat and milk by the federal government. Just six months later, it was lowered to the present level of parts per million. The level for eggs and poultry is much lower. These guidelines led to public hearings. Was the level low enough to protect humans from PBB poisoning?

On May 29th, 1975 one such hearing was held in Lansing, Michigan`s state capital. Farmers protesting the PBB contamination were greeting everyone. They contended that this coca was contaminated with .09 parts per million, well below the federal level. They said if PBB could do this to a cow, just think what it could do to people, and that`s what the public hearing was all about. Experts say all of their research shows testable amounts of PBB in cattle at the present rate does not effect humans. Dr. Maurice Reizen, Director of Public health, said at this time there was nothing to worry about.

Dr. MAURICE REIZEN (Director of Public Health in Michigan): The consumer in the market can be reassured that the food that they are buying is wholesome.

KARL: That statement by Dr. Reizen was made about a year ago. Today, Dr. Wilcox, a year later, do we know any more about the effects of PBB on human health?

Dr. KENNETH WILCOX: Not substantially. We do have a follow-up on some individuals on an :episodic basis, and we have a lot of complaints that have not had scientific .Follow-up. But I would say that we really don`t yet know the health effects, just as we didn`t a year ago. And this is the reason that we are instituting further study, long range study, to go back and get more people, and get on an organized basis to say that there is or is not a health effect.

KARL: Michigan farmers have taken their protest to the State capital and to the nation`s capital in Washington D.C. They claim that Agriculture officials are covering up the effects of PBB on people and animals. State Representative Donald Albosta has joined the farmers.

Rep. DONALD ALBOSTA: The reason that I say there is a cover-up in this situation is that we have a barrier around anything we try to do, any information that we try to rate and every time my committee starts on to getting some to some end of this thing, to try and find out some details, we are immediately drifted off into something else, because another agency or someone else comes up with something else that we have to investigate. We have not been able to concentrate our efforts in one area because something else pops up all the time.

DONALD ISLEIB: (Department of Agriculture) : . . . Was a unique and new problem one that we had never experienced, before, nor had any other agency like ours experienced one of this magnitude before. Our records are all public. We have not attempted to conceal from anyone, be he a farmer, or industrialist, or a newsperson, or a citizen calling for information, shat we have done and what the status of the problem is and the basis on which our decision: have been made. So I feel personally very satisfied that there is no cover-up in this Department.

KARL: Farmers say that low level PBB is killing their herds. They complain that PBB test results the receive are different from the results of the state. `re searchers studying PBB contamination salt it is not unusual to have different results from different testing labs. For example, scientists say once test tubes are contaminated by PBB, they should be destroyed because the PBB will cling to the glass no matter how sterile you may think the glass is. That, they say, is the same thing it does to your body. Scientist do know that PBB collects in the fatty tissue of the body, and as the fat is dissolved, PBB flog:, through the blood stream and settles in other organs, particularly the liver. How much damage it does to humans at tail time is not Known.

Ron Creighton worked for the Mecosta County Road Commission. Creighton claims PBB cost him his health and his job.

RON CREIGHTON: I`ve got all the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis for the last year and a half, and just recently a test came back positive on rheumatoid arthritis, but they figured that it was on account o-f the PEB in my system.

I`m unable to do an hour`s work a day I would say , and I sleep 12, 14, 16, l8 hours a day sometimes.

AL GREENE: (Patient) :Every once in a while your head will fly off of your shoulders. You`ve got high blood pressure, hypertension. I`ve been to seven doctors, and I had Dr. Corbett look at the sores on my legs, and he said if it was what he thought it was, he said, "It wall be with your for the rest of your life."

KARL: What did he say it was?

GREENE : He said it was from coming in contact with some chemical in Fire Master.

Dr. WILCOX: It`s difficult for. us to see how one poison o one substance can cause such a wide variety of health effects. Our problem is to sort out and see what within that might be caused by PBB.

ALBOSTA: If these people. are not sick from PBB, then what in the hell are they sick from? 1r`e know that they are sick, and I believe them. They have testified before me and before my Committee, under oath, as to their problems. Doctors across this state, private practitioners, are saying that they have problems. Why is it that you what, en` t looked?

KARL: State Officials deny charges that they were delaying any research or investigation of the PBB problem. They say they didn`t really know what they had on their hands. Not all farmers agree with the charges that are being leveled. Many farmers who suffered from PBB are now back on their feet and operating again. They claim all this adverse publicity is hurting the industry. Less than five percent of the dairy herds in the state were hit with PBB poisoning. Thirty-two million dollars in damages have already been paid out because of PBB. Nearly 300 claims still have to be mediated. It must be pointed out that farmers cannot collect insurance if their herds test within the .3 guideline. Also it`s not known if the farmers who gilled their herds will be paid off. The reason many of these men slaughtered their livestock varies. Some farmers say they did it to dramatize the need to get the contaminated animals off the market once and for all.

This dead sheep hard belongs to 30 year old Wayne Korski of Chase. He said he killed them for ethical reasons. Korski said he could legally sell these animals but morally he couldn`t. Other farmers have done the same thing, and that`s that the fight is all about. The state says that it`s legal to sell the livestock within the PBB standards. The farmers says it`s immoral. The PBB problem has brought about some new laws in the agricultural industry and has raised many questions, forcing the search for many answers. It also exemplifies how a scientific issue involving human health and economics can get stalled in the political process. It has brought about an awareness to the people that a simple mistake with chemicals may cause devastating problems. It has caused bitter conflicts by pitting man`s emotions against man`s facts. Man can deal with the visible elements, natural disaster and so forth, but the PBB issue points out that man must also deal with the hidden element.

There are two million chemical compounds known to science, but their potential toxic dangers are almost unknown. These potential hazards have been called to our attention by the PBB problem

LEHLER: In recent weeks, a federally financed, medical team went to Michigan to test the effects of PBB on people. It was led by Dr. Irving Selikoff, Director of the Environmental Sciences at Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York. His aide, Dr. Henry Paterson described the team`s preliminary findings;

HEALTH TESTS FILM

Dr. HENRY ANDERSON: I found things in this group of people which we haven`t seen in other occupational groups which, in the experience of our physicians, are abnormal findings.

COMMENTATOR: What kind of things were those?

ANDERSON: We found changes in the slain. We`ve found changes in joints, primarily in younger people. Again, patterns of symptoms that you would not normally see in a specific age group. The shin changes, for instance, we saw were in pre-pubescent children, age 4, age 9, with acne. It`s highly unusual to see that. The found memory problems in adults, young adults; people who have hypersomnia, sleep 12 to 14 to 16 hours a day. Of course, they are all fatigued or tired, but there are other explanations for that. But short term memory loss and other types of things. It appears that there may be some problems with balance, different areas of the brain, the ways they function, may be somewhat changed.

Dr. IRVING SELIKOFF: Our research has two, principal object. First, to see whether human beings are suffering from possible disease so that doctors will know how to diagnose what might occur and, in fact, diagnose it from other things which it might resemble, and also to develop treatment if such should be needed. Secondly, since PBB`s are not metabolized by the body, we can`t got rid of them. They tend to be stored within us. And as a result, if you keep eating PBB`s in various foods, we store more and more in our tissues. Now, we don`t know how :much is "safe." What we will find will slier, the Michigan Department of Health and the Michigan Department of agriculture to look very; carefully at their guidelines not-, to see what is and what isn`t safe in food.

REPORTER: If another chemical accident or mishap occurs, how should the nation react? ;-That should we do?

SELIKOFF: We`re learning now from difficulties like this one. First is our intellectual preparation. We`ve got to realize that then things break loose into the environment, it`s very difficult to contain them. They just spread all over so that urgent action is probably, from the point of vice, of control, the moat important. For this the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences is now developing plans on how scientists and our government should respond. Hopefully, we`re going to learn our lessons, and I think we are.

LEHRER: Dr. Anderson and the rest of Dr. Selikoff`s team is one of seven medical investigative groups working in conjunction wit! the national Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, and Dr. David Rall has been the Director of the institute for the pact five years.

First, Doctor, do you agree with fir. Selikoff that the federal government, working with the respective state government o is set up properly now to respond to disasters like this?

Dr. DAVID RALL: I don`t think we`re set up properly now. I think we are beginning to learn what we have to do, and V think within a year or two we can be set up properly.

LEHRER: Why does it take so long, sir?

RALL: It takes a lot of time to get new programs authorized in Congress. We don`t have adequate, scientific, medically trained people available now. We have some. We don`t have enough. We need to train more, and we need to get them ready to move out and find out what`s going on when one of these accidents or incidents happen.

LEHRER: What`s the problem? Is it a money problem? Is it a will problem? What is it?

RALL: I think it`s Just that we have only realized within the last few years that instead of the communicable disease epidemics that we had in the past, we`re now going to have to worry about chemical disease epidemics. And the physicians in the United States are not ready to think about this yet. They don`t think in terms of a chemical that`s been fed to livestock as causing sickness in their patients. It`s going to take a lot of education.

LEHRER: All right, speaking of education and knowledge, based on the Michigan experience and all other studies that have been done up till now, what do we know tonight about the effects of PBB on human health, in a general way?

RALL: We know very little. There have been statements that I heard on the little film clip that there was no health effect. There were no health effects in man because they hadn`t been looked for. Dr. Selikoff and his team are literally the first that have gone out and systematically looked to see whether the health of the exposed farmers is different from non- exposed farmers. Many of the problems, the short term memory loss, a little bit of chloracne, acne -- these are not specific diagnostic problems. A few people have them at all time:,. But when they are grouped together, then it can become a clinical syndrome that can be diagnosed. low, we assume this is from PBBI but this is really what Dr. Selikoff is trying to find out.

LEHRER: What are you hoping for in terms of target date when we will know for sure about what PBD will do to human beings?

RALL: That`s a global question because it takes decades to find out what a chemical does when man is exposed to it -- to find out all about it. I think within a matter of weeks to a few months, with Dr. Selkoff`s results we ought to have a very good idea of what the sort of mid-term effects are. That is effects that occur within a few years.

LERHER: Thank You , Doctor. Robin?

MacNEIL: The PDB connect on might have remained a mystery longer: if one of the Michigan farmers involved had not also had a considerable knowledge of chemistry. Frederic Halbert is a dairy farmer from Delton, Michigan, and a chemical engineer. He worked for the Dow Chemical Company for three years before returning to his family`s farm in 1971.

HALBERT: What was your experience with the government, state and federal, in trying to tract. down the PBB connection?

FREDERIC HALBERT: I think it would be a compliment to say that they were passive.

MacNEIL: They were not interested in pursuing it?

HALBERT : No, I had the feeling that they don`t have the protocol established for dealing with a problem of an individual. If I had known dozens or hundreds of other people that had the problem I :eight have been able to generate some interest, but I certainly didn`t have that knowledge because other people apparently, at that point, weren`t sensing a problem or else they had no idea what was happening to them.

MacNEIL: Are farmers in Michigan whom you know convinced that the PDD problem has finally received adequate attention now?

HALBERT : No, I don`t think so. There are two distinct groups of BB farmers, those that had significant levels and were quarantined, and had animals removed, and basically they have been, I think, across the board paid for those animals. And those people aren`t the ones that are having the problem. The ones that had lower animals that disposed of them themselves, or that haven`t disposed of them yet but feel that the animals are not economic, they are in a bind. They don`t know what to do, and they have kind of given up on the issue of trying to get people to loot; at the animals. They are saying, "Look at us. We`re exposed to this." And that`s a little like yelling, "Fire!" in a theater. People will take note of that. But in this case" they are saying there is poison in the food, and so people will sit up and they will recognize that there is something personal to them -- that is, their community is involved in this also.

MacNEIL: Since this incident occurred, and in fact, in the last sip: months both Houses of Congress have passed, and the President has signed the Toxic substances Control Act.

One of the provisions of that is that chemicals, as I understand it, will have to be tested for their effect on human beings as well as their other purposes before they can be released. Do you think that is sufficient to take care of this problem?

HALBERT: No, it isn`t because this problem happened. That is, it was an event, and there is not a mechanism in place to deal with an event, an7accident like this, and this accident will keep happening because it has happened. over twenty tines since 1969 we have had major contaminations of the food supply in the U.S.

MacNEIL: Right. Mr. Rall, do you think that the Toxic Substances Control Act is sufficient?

RALL: It won`t guarantee as such that that will not happen again. But it :rill help prevent it, and it will certainly help a much earlier detection. The polybrominided biphenols have been looked at by two, very large, very reputable, chemical companies who felt that they were too toxic to market for any use. These companies did not market them. They had the information. It was in the open literature. A third company which did not do the sort of good toxicological studies that the other two had done, went ahead and marketed it. So, I think in that instance, probably it`s unlikely that PBB`s would have been marketed. Now secondly, the Toxic Substances pct calls for a list of all chemicals that are produced, who produces them, and how much. It would have been much easier to track down PBB` s if you had known that Michigan Chemical made them and then also made the feed additive.

MacNEIL: Right.

RALL: No promises, but I think it would have helped.

MacNEIL: I see. Mr. Halbert, why don`t you tell Mr. Rall what else you thin as a farmer and as a chemist, the government should do in this area to make sure this sort of thing doesn`t happen.

HALBERT : In this case , even once the problem develops , that that is you have identified it in April of 1974, it toot over a year before the majority of farms were actually quarantined. That`s actually after we knew what we were looking for. And that`s because there wasn`t manpower assigned to the problem, they didn`t have enough technical equipment to run the samples, and so this process just kept going on and on, and it has to be stopped vary quickly. If we have an infectious disease, let`s say with swine, they had one recently orb the East Coast with hog cholera -- the next day the U.S. Department of Agriculture sends in hundreds of veterinarians to stamp it out, to make sure they have got it corralled. They found the boundaries of the accident. In this case, it sort of wandered on its own with just a couple of different instruments in a laboratory trying to run samples rather desperately.

MacNEIL: What would you think of a suggestion like that, Mr. Rall?

RALL: I think it suggests that the veterinarians, like their cousins the medical doctors, are not currently sensitive to the problems of chemical toxicity that we are facing now and will face in the future. It`s a different sort of thinking to realize that a chemical in the foodstuff or in the grater, that you can`t taste, the meat looks fine and vet it can be toxic. It`s hard for people to understand that, both-veterinarians and physicians.

MacNEIL: Finally, can I just ask, are people in Michigan or nearby, or elsewhere in the country still eating things with PBB`s in them?

HALBERT: Your question can` t be answered because you can only test to a certain level. before your instruments sort of conk out. They won`t tell you if its there below a certain level , so certainly they are . And they can never be assured that they won`t be there. This concept that he was just talking about in terms of things being in the food is a new one to most people. People are concerned about air pollution and about grater pollution, but they have always thought their food was pure and wholesome, but the food isn`t pure. Food has things in it.

MacNEIL: Well, food for thought. Thank you very much in Washington, and Jim Lehrer and I will be back on Monday evening. Good night.