Joyce Egginton

Joyce Egginton is the author of seven non-fiction books, including From Cradle to Grave (1989), a best seller in the U.S. and Germany. She was for 20 years New York Correspondent of The...

Poisoning of Michigan, The

Joyce Egginton

Click here to read the online DOME magazine interview with POISONING OF MICHIGAN author Joyce Egginton.

The highly toxic PBB poisoning of Michigan remains the most widespread chemical contamination known in U.S. history. The Poisoning of Michigan is an investigative journalist's account of the contamination of Michigan's dairy cattle with the highly toxic chemical PBB (polybrominated biphenyl) in 1973. A near relation of PCB, this now-banned substance, designed as a fire retardant, was mistaken for a nutritional supplement at a chemical plant. It ended up in cattle feed that was distributed to farms throughout the state. By the time the error was discovered, virtually all nine million residents of Michigan had been ingesting contaminated milk and meat for almost a year.

A new introduction by the author and an afterword by three distinguished environmental scientists explain how the legacy of Michigan's poisoning lives on — and how equally toxic substitutes for PBB still invade our homes and lives. Devra Lee Davis is Director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute's Center for Environmental Oncology and author of When Smoke Ran Like Water. Maryann Donovan is Associate Director for Research Services and Advancement at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute and Assistant Professor in the Department of Pathology. Arlene Blum is the founder of the Green Science Policy Institute.

This new edition of Joyce Egginton's environmental classic — first published in 1980 and long out of print — tells how the tragedy affected both the farm community and the wider populace, and how federal and state authorities failed to respond. "We were mired in a swamp of ignorance," one state official admitted.

CONTENTS:
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Foreword
Preface: The Courageous Few
Part One: An Unknown Toxin
1 Prelude to Disaster
2 A Mountain of Trouble
3 Working Against Time
4 Clue from a Machine
5 Family Tragedy
6 A Bureaucratic Decision
7 More Pieces of the Puzzle
8 Needle in the Haystack
Part Two: In Search of Proof
9 Chemicals to Save Lives
10 In Quarantine
11 Recontamination Begins
12 What the Experts Knew
13 The Road to Kalkaska
14 Beyond Medical Experience
15 Farmer Against Farmer
16 Only a Litmus Test
17 A Doctor’s Dilemma
18 The First Crusader
19 When No News Is Bad News
20 Conference in a Kitchen
21 Unlikely Odyssey
Part Three: The Human Factor
22 Death of a Herd
23 A Moral Judgment
24 Politicians Versus Scientists
25 Unconventional Medicine
26 Trial of Strength
27 End of the Road
Epilogue: The Ultimate Experiment
Afterword
References
Index

Reviews

"A landmark of environmental reporting... A preview of chemical horrors yet to come...takes up where Silent Spring left off." — Stewart L. Udall, former U.S. Secretary of the Interior

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"The Poisoning of Michigan is a story we ignore at our peril. Joyce Egginton's gripping reporting of the largest chemical contamination of food and the people who consumed it in our history is meticulously told through the voices of those involved, including those whose lives and families were turned upside down. Egginton's book reminds us that a public health and environmental disaster of unfathomable proportions not only can happen, it in fact did happen." — Anne Woiwode, State Director, Sierra Club, Michigan Chapter