Environment
PBB health study moves from Michigan to Georgia
|
By BRIAN BIENKOWSKI
Capital News Service
LANSING — For more than three decades, Michigan tracked the health of about 4,000 residents who ingested fire retardant chemicals that were accidentally introduced into the food supply. The crisis occurred in 1973, when a flame retardant got mixed up with a cattle feed supplement, leading to widespread PBB contamination in Michigan. The once-robust research project on polybrominated biphenyls, known as PBBs, also examined the health of the initial participants’ children. But now the state is handing off the study to a researcher in Georgia – not because the health fears disappeared or because participants are chemical-free: The reason? There’s no money.