Cows sick from eating PBB-laced feed are rounded up and killed on Alvin and Hilda Green's former farm in Chase.
First of two parts | Read Part 2
Lori Morris doesn't have a thyroid; her sister's esophagus was removed years ago.
Three out of four of Hilda Green's grown children are gone, each plagued with health problems and one dead at 50 of leukemia.
Jim Buchanan has a litany of health problems that began in his early 30s -- arthritis, gout, irregular heartbeats. Diabetes claimed his daughter at 24. At 63, he's waiting for a heart transplant.
They don't know one another. They live in different parts of the state.
But each suspects the same three-letter toxin: PBB.
"I know there's not proof or nothing, and maybe there never will be," said Morris, 55, a Garden City resident who works in sales. Her thyroid, doctors told her, was gone by the time she was 18. "But we were healthy -- perfectly healthy -- until that PBB mess."
Polybrominated biphenyl
Cattlegate: Documentary
Cattlegate is a documentary film about the Michigan PBB disaster; the accidental introduction of a highly toxic flame-retardent chemical, into the Michigan cattle feed supply in 1973. Cows that were exposed to the feed suffered horrible genetic mutations, necessitating the deliberate extermination of entire herds.
This film, one of the few to cover the event from inside the U.S., documents the farmers who's lives were destroyed by the aftermath, and the unconscionable decisions that were made to allow the contaminated beef and dairy products to continue being distributed to consumers for 9 months after the problem became known.
LINK: http://www.taoslandandfilm.com/independent-films/Cattlegate-Michigan-PBB-documentary#.U21Bb_ldWnw
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