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Pathway :: Home  Environmental Leaked Report on the Great Lakes Identifies Serious Problems
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Leaked Report on the Great Lakes Identifies Serious Problems |
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Contributed by Jim Elliott
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Saturday, 16 February 2008 |
A report on the health of the Great Lakes Basin was finished but not made public last August, 2007. It states that at least 9 million people may be in danger from high levels of chemical polluiton but nobody was called. The report was done by the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention on behalf of the International Joint Commission.
The study shows that there are 26 Areas of Concern (AOC) where elevated
levels of illness can be traced back to pollution. Of particular
interest are Chicago, Detroit and Buffalo. For example, the report
identifies that there are elevated levels of infant mortality in all 26
areas and premature births in four.
This report mirrors a report
done in the 1990's by Health Canada that stated we had 17 Canadians
AOCs. When Canada got this report, it circulated them only to public
health officials. Similar to this report, a study was leaked to a
reporter forcing the government to release the rest of the report.
"There is really a reluctance within the governments to acknowledge
that there are any effects of these chemicals on fish or wildlife or on
human health," said Michael Gilbertson, a former IJC scientist who was
one of three scientists to peer review the U.S. study.
"I mean you can
find sources of chemicals in the environment," he said. "But if you
actually find effects, this has a connotation of liability.
Governments are extremely reluctant to allow their scientists to start
making statements about the effects of chemicals on fish, wildlife or
on humans. Particularly on humans."
"It raises very important
questions," Dr. Peter Orris, a professor at the University of Illinois
School of Public Health in Chicago and one of three experts who
reviewed the study. "Communities could demand that those questions be
answered in a more systematic way. Not to release it is putting your
head under the sand."
The Canadian study found a series of
outbreaks of Minamata disease in Thunder Bay, Collingwood, Sarnia and
Cornwall. Minamata disease, which includes cerebral palsy among its
symptoms, is caused by mercury poisoning.
For more information,
go to http://www.publicintegrity.org/GreatLakes/index.htm or
http://www.epa.gov/glnpo/aoc/ or
http://www.on.ec.gc.ca/water/raps/intro_e.html
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 16 February 2008 )
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