1969 Huckleby Mercury Poisoning
In 1969, in Alamogordo, New Mexico, Ernest Huckleby bought grain from the Golden West Seed Company to feed his hogs. As part of the purchase, he was given some “waste” grain that included pink-dyed seeds treated with a mercuric fungicide. Unaware of the danger, Huckleby fed this mercury-treated grain to a hog, then slaughtered the animal and fed the meat to his wife (who was three months pregnant) and to his eight children.
Several of the Huckleby hogs seemed sick, which Huckleby thought was the well-known “blind staggers” problem among farmers. But the family, including the pregnant mother, ate the meat. Within about three months, the children began showing serious problems: ataxia, agitation, vision loss, and impaired consciousness.
Baby Michael was born severely neurologically damaged—blind, prone to seizures, and minimally aware of his environment. Ernestine, age 8, became blind and could not sit up, roll over, hold objects, or speak. Amos, 13, also became functionally blind with poor coordination. Dorothy Jean, 20, suffered from tunnel vision, slurred speech, impaired coordination, and numbness in her extremities. The parents appeared unaffected, which matched later medical findings that methylmercury is especially dangerous to a developing nervous system in babies and children. Four of the eight children were affected, and four were not.
Dorothy Jean and Amos were hospitalized in Roswell, New Mexico for 18 months. Dorothy, who had unable to stand or use her arms and legs, regained much of her function after treatment. Amos remained blind, in a wheelchair, and could speak only with difficulty. Baby Michael remained blind and severely impaired. Ernestine was placed in Gerald Champion Memorial Hospital in Alamogordo, where she remained in a coma for more than a year. After awakening, she was blind with severe physical disability and was described as someone who may never understand what happened to her.
Ernestine’s image became the well-known face of methylmercury poisoning in the early 1970s after a photograph of her was published in National Geographic (As We Live and Breathe: the Challenge of Our Environment, 1971). The photo, showing Ernestine with large, staring eyes and a teddy bear, moved many people, and the photographer James P. Blair called it one of his saddest assignments.
Dorothy Jean later sued the Federal government, arguing that the warning label on the treated seed was insufficient to prevent food-chain poisoning. She did not win. The case highlighted concerns about organomercury fungicides, and many countries restricted their use. In the United States, regulation moved slowly, and the practice continued for years, as illustrated by another family in Yakima, Washington who were poisoned through seed grain treated with mercurial fungicide.
Ernestine, who was 8 when she was poisoned, lived with quadriplegia, blindness, and severe mental retardation until her death at age 30. An autopsy showed extensive brain damage and high levels of inorganic mercury, leading researchers to conclude that methylmercury crossing the blood-brain barrier can transform and persist in the brain, causing lasting harm.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 15:41 (CET).