Document 5D0GQZy28ez1rJ2VN63d6pkdD

PCB contamination to haunt country for decades to come With apologies to compoior Woody Guthrie, here's new Um for one of the country's best-known folk songs: Prom the redwood forests to the Gulf Stream water**, this land is soaked with PCB." PCBs are polychlorinated biphenyls, a family of toxic, highly persistent In dustrie! chemicals that have caused liver damage and birth defects la labo ratory animals. The redwood forests span the south ern coast of Oregon, where a cummerdal bakery recently discovered that it had purchased - and now must de stroy - *0,091 FCB-contemtnatad eggs. THE GULP STREAM waters wash the west coast of Florida, where a chemist recently found a marked de cline in the potential fertility of young men that appeared to be related in part to PCB traces found in the sub jects'sperm. This month s reports of PCB con tamination aren't limited to thoee two stales. In Franklin, Idaho, a poultry company is in the process of destroy iog more than MO,MS contaminated chickens sod more than a million pel- to Clinton. Iowa, a packing company la destroying the meat from M.0M mart chickens, all purchased from the Idaho firm, la fUctunond, Utah, PCB tracts have been fouad to 79,010 freest cakes that slat meat be feelroped. la Billings, Mont, federal beaRb of ficials haw converged ea a hog pro- Martha Angle ana Robert Walters slroyed or banned by federal officials because of PCB contamination discov ered in the early 1070s include the fol lowing: more than 400.100 eggs in Vir ginia and North Carolina. 2M.000 pounds of turkey roil in South Caroline, *0,000 turkeys la Minnesota and 3*0,000 chickens in Mama, New York and North Carolina. Meanwhile, the company that was the sole U S. producer and marketer of PCBs for almost half a century is busi ly propagandising the public about tho real and imagined gionet of lodmtrial chemicals. The Momenta Co. of St. Louis finally halted Reproduction of PCBs (sold un der the Aroclor trade name)! in (he am tumn of 1977, but not until it had prw> freed enough of the teale UguM to float an entire navy. Monsanto has claimed in meant years that it alwayt wee esararaad public informed about the hasarda. But whan the threat ef PCBi waa first disekmd in the early 1970s, M santo denigrated time isnlstlsaa aa mere "political ehargsa and lawlin al headlines... scare toeHas end am- sationa! reporting." THE COMPANY now hen mounted an ambitkm and exp--tvn edwrttw ing campaign dmtgnad in daomatorate that chemicals am valaahta, if oat * indispensable, te modem Ufa. Moasaato's utoqutteos telavWan commercials exlei the vMam of to firefighting compounds Never men tioned. however, le the produet that will haunt the eetieo for many decades teeema-- PCBs. , ISewspeptf Eempf-- Am. 1 JaiEr~ST* SEP 2 4 1979 mrci K Um raM rocot oatknok o< wUupmd PCB ooumkulf TUB OOVBBNMBNT UmUioOo. ilroody mimimunootottkooo-- try'. MrtkiMt u*a> kocuoo tko MMUM cowpooy mUi IM.M to SP0.M# pw* at onfcaol Iaa4 tmkly tkmikoot Wuklntoo. Onto* M--um. Idoko, MUmooU. Nonk Dokolk WdSowkDokoU. Tko Flortdo uMai doocrikod tM mtd-Ioptomkor mmoI mootioi at tlu Amoricu Ckomtcol Soctoty, M ro- toonkon to coKlkdo Ikkl 13 pomkt ol imp at molt cotlofo .tudonti Uvolyod U Iko rndy Mftom Imn HueUomI HorlUty. Otkor kmMUU roporud it tko AraorfcM Ckowtcil SocUty ommoUot Uut ton of rCBo toll Iron, tko otr oock poor Mo tko Gmt Lokoo. Food product, conflocotod. do* HONS 008774