The State - News from June 6, 1986

A state health department probe to determine if a 4-year-old Riverside County boy died of toxic waste poisoning was “insufficient and insensitive,” the state auditor general said. Michael Harman died unexpectedly in November, 1984, while living near the Stringfellow toxic waste dump. His parents requested the state Department of Health Services to test samples of the soil where the child played for toxic substances. However, the samples were not tested until eight months later and showed no harmful chemicals. The department “communicated infrequently with the Harmans and gave them unclear, conflicting and incomplete information,” Auditor General Thomas Hayes wrote in his report. “I mean, your child dies and they give you such a hard time,” said Diane Harman, the child’s mother. “The thing I want to get to is who dumped those toxic chemicals, and who killed my son.” Health department director Kenneth Kizer called the report’s conclusion “unfortunate” and “not accurate.”