Document 3dyZdDEkBXg7ZLBMQVzgJqKx

WINSlUM-iAUM, N c SENTINEL ` home edition l>. 40,E3: MAR 2 8 1977 A Plague of Chemicals Science, which has gone so far toward dairy products contain dangerous levels ridding the world of devastating disease, of PCB. . may now just as effectively be visiting Incredibly, even belated knowledge ol upon us a new, equally potent scourge. the dangers of PCBs and their ilk is not Something like 30,000 chemicals are on enough. Earlier this month, a contractor the American market today, and only a came within an inch of spraying Iowa's tiny fraction of them have been analyzed dusty country roads with enough PCB to for harmful effects. kill or sicken every man. woman and A good case in point are the PCBs, child in that state. Ten thousand gallons described as "a class of colorless, of the stuff had been picked up "by mis tasteless chlorinated hydrocarbon take" by a truck driver who thought he similar to the pesticide DDT." Between was loading up with crankcase drainings. 1929, when PCBs were introduced by Experience was little help to Michigan Monantp, the.sole producer, and 1971, dairy farmers who lost their herds two the compounds found their way into a years ago when a toxic fire-retardant broad assortment of products, ranging chemical was "accidentally" mixed into from brake fluid to carbon paper and cattle feed. Now, they are slaughtering soap. Forty years after PCBs hit the their new herds because they are con market, evidence of their danger finally taminated with yet another chemical, a prompted Monsanto to limit sales to preservative the animals apparently in customers using them in "closed gested by licking barn wood. systems," such as electrical insulation Clearly, our collective survival By (hen, the persistent compounds, were depends on *more than just greater everywhere. They have been found in the vigilance. We must abandon immediate snow at the North Pole and in fish taken ly the free-wheeling system under which from the Yukon River. a company may put questionable Finally, last fall, enactment of the chemicals into the environment willy- Toxic Substances Act banned manufac nilly until the federal government com ture of PCtto after 1978. There is con pletes the cumbersome process leading vincing evidence that they cause to restriction. In the face of chemical cancers, stillbirths, miscarriages and proliferation, we must raise a stiff set of "various metabolic disorders." No one obstacles that go far beyond mere proof knows what to do about the PCBs of usefulness. Before a new chemical already in circulation, in the food chain compound can be marketed, we should and accumulating in human tissue. PCBs require not only conclusive proof of its from s Westinghout* plant near safety, but proof that it is needed. Only Bloomington, Ind., have entered that when the sheer numbers of different area's rivers and streams and ruined an compounds are reduced will it become important recreation industry., They possible to determine if those that re have infected the city's sewage sludge, main are safe. We must begin with the which was innocently used as farm fer presumption that the world does not need tiliser. Backyard vegetables, beef and * another chemical. . HONS 001662