PBBs - no harm, no foul???

(Excerpt from: http://blog.mlive.com/cns/2009/04/state_pbb_experts_still_take_s.html)
"LANSING-- It all started in late 1973, when the Michigan Chemical Co. ran out of bags for its animal feed. Instead of using regularly labeled bags to package feed, it used plain brown paper bags.
And then the mix-up happened. Instead of filling bags with feed, they were filled with polybrominated biphenyl, or PBB, a flame-retardant chemical used in plastics. The feed was then mixed in Battle Creek and fed to cattle around the state. Consumers later bought meat and milk from these cattle.
By spring 1974, PBB-tainted meat, dairy products and land had caused a huge scare around the state because the chemical's long-term effects were relatively unknown.
Thirty-five years later, experts and officials assert that PBB left virtually no adverse health effects, but did lead to tougher laws and improved business procedures. "We always thought it wasn't a big deal," said Kammann (MDoug Kammann, chief financial officer at the Michigan Farm Bureau) "It never really affected anyone. But at the time, everyone was really scared."
(Actually nearly a year passed before investigators figured out that the cattle feed was contaminated: see http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1774247 which contradicts some of the above.)

As for it never affecting anyone...
According to friends, some still living in the area, within weeks of feeding livestock PBB contaminated feed, many of their animals' knee-joints swelled up and they had difficulty walking (local vets said it was rheumatoid arthritis). Also, many calves and piglets born during that period were "daft" (couldn't walk or control their muscles) so farmers killed them shortly after they were born. And later, they said, it was discovered that cows had developed strange "free floating" cancers in their uterus's.
Because humans ingested PBB-tainted foods, State officials sent those in the most affected areas to doctors for extremely intense physicals to determine health effects.
In the family (father, mother, daughter, and two sons) I know, lab tests showed they had some of the highest levels of PBB in their bloodstreams among others tested, so they were included in a 10-year study of the long-term effects of exposure. Tests also showed the mother had a free-floating cancer in her uterus, similar to the cancers local vets found in the cows, however this was not stated in any reports, but told to her by the doctor on her case. Officials then ruled out ingestion of PBB-tainted food as the cause of the cancer, however, they did pay for the surgery to remove it. They also asked her to sign something stating she wouldn't sue the Michigan Chemical Company over it, but she refused. Also, two of the family's three childrens' knee joints swelled up, but that was also officially ruled out as not being caused by the exposure.
According to the family, men showed up at their farm in hazmat suits and told them everything affected by PBB contaminated feed had to be destroyed; animals, feeding structures, barns (including foundations), etc., all at the family's expense. Even livestock trucks with wooden floor beds had to have the wood removed and destroyed, and then replaced with metal. All metal truck beds had to be decontaminated. The father, who owned a livestock trucking company hauled (for free because no one would compensate the farmers) thousands of animals, his own and others owned by farmers in the area, ordered to be destroyed, to the burial pits in Mio, Michigan. The animals were walked down into the pits amidst all the other dead animals and killed. "It's one of the few times I've ever seen my father cry, the daughter said".
They also said crops on farms fertilized with tainted manure wouldn't grow. And today, they call these "sand farms", because nothing would grow on the land for the first two years after contamination, but with contant deep dirt rotation, bringing underlying sand to the top of the fields, they were finally able to grow crops like navy beans and sugar beats. Even to this day, corn and other crops needing more nutrients, will not grow well on the previously contaminated soil.
As the years passed for this family, other health issues cropped up.
The eldest son developed rheumatoid arthritis and the daughter developed knee problems resulting in five knee surgerys, the first ones at the age of 14, and the last at around age 20. Her knees still trouble her to this day. Also, when the daughter started puberty and into her late 20's she had excrutiating periods, laying her up in bed for days at a time. Over time, she developed ovarian cysts, two of which, when surgically removed, were found embedded in her back muscles with "feeder veins" coming from the ovaries. One cyst that developed burst inside her as she was being evicted from the emergency room (still laying on a gurney because she couldn't walk) because the attending doctor refused to treat her because she had no insurance. It took more than a decade for her to get any of the numerous doctors who treated her to agree to a hysterectomy. For approximate 11 years, following her hysterectomy, she had no major medical issues. Then one day she woke up in excrutiating pain, unable to stop from throwing up, and had to be placed in the hospital for emergency surgery. Surgeons found an abcessed cyst surrounding fallopean tissue (thought to be removed during her hysterectomy/tubalectomy years prior). But that wasn't the worst they found. She had bands of scar tissue wrapped in and around her bowels and throughout her abdomen. Surgeons freed her bowels, removed the abscessed cyst, layed down barrier material to prevent scar tissue from connecting her bowels to her pelvic floor, and then closed her up. She was back in the hospital about a year later, diagnosed with ischemic colitis, and was released after three days. Less than a year later, she was back in the hospital for more surgery, having her remaining ovary removed and removal of massive scar tissue that had regrown weblike around her bowels, trapping in large cyst-like sacs of fluids.
Finally, the father of this family now suffers from non-Hodgkins lymphomas. (In 1998, studys show those with the highest levels of PBB have significantly higher rates of lymphoma - http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1774247).

No one has ever proven that these health issues are directly caused by their ingestion of PBB-contaminated food in 1973 and 1974. But that doesn't excuse those responsible for never compensating this family for what they suffered. They lost all their livestock, over 500 head, had to destroy their barns and suffered numerous health issues. And never received a penny. And to top it off, the daughter cannot get health insurance to cover any of her pre-existing medical issues.