Globe's Mystery

In Arizona last June, a U.S. Forest Service helicopter set out to spray the parched Pinal Mountains with potent herbicides--mainly one called Silvex, plus small quantities of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T. Purpose of the spraying operation: to preserve precious water for people by killing water-consuming vegetation. Unfortunately, instead of being mixed with diesel oil, the defoliants were mistakenly applied with water, which quickly evaporates in the arid area. As a result, they were especially toxic. Worse, the helicopter strayed over the copper-mining town of Globe (pop. 6,000), the far outskirts of which were soon covered with a fine white mist.

Although Globe residents had lived easily with the Forest Service's spraying program since 1965, they were outraged when backyard vegetation recently began to wither. Then eggplants turned as orange as pumpkins. Pumpkins turned as black as charcoal. And desert yucca, which normally grows as straight as a telephone pole, developed S curves.

Lurking Spies. Outrage became an ecological crusade when some of the people who were exposed to the spray began to have odd complaints. Mrs. Willard Shoecraft, about 50, suffered chest pains, shortness of breath, repeated vaginal bleeding and numbness of her hands and legs. Robert McCray, 33, had some of the same symptoms; his infant son nearly died. At least half a dozen other families experienced stomach upsets after the spraying. Robert McKusick, 39, says that 60% of the kids in his small goat herd have been born dead or deformed in the past two years.

Is Silvex--or any other defoliant --the real culprit? Globe's veterinarian insists that he has noticed nothing out of the ordinary in local animals. Doctors too are puzzled. Says one: "I keep trying to see the relationship between the spraying and the illnesses, but I have simply not found anything." Says another: "Old troubles have been given new names."

The doctors may be right. James Andrews, 39, describes in detail his three-year history of strange illnesses. But the closest he has ever been to the herbicide is 50 yards from a Ranger station where, he says, "I was told they had two cans of it." Mrs. Shoecraft is convinced that her phone is being tapped, her mail opened, her every movement watched by lurking spies.

Paranoid Outburst. To find out just what was happening, a group from Environmental Action in Washington, D.C., visited Globe. With them was Dr. Samuel Epstein, a distinguished expert on herbicides from the Harvard Medical School. The group ended up perplexed --and incredulous. Some of the Silvex-touched residents tried to check on Dr. Epstein's credentials by telephoning Harvard. In a paranoid outburst, others accused the investigators of being impostors, really representatives of chemical manufacturers in clever disguise. The real Dr. Epstein, they said, had died six years ago. To look further into the mystery, eight Government scientists left for Globe early this week. So far, only one thing seems clear: environmental concern can do odd things to some people's minds.

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