A renewed effort is being made to alert women and members of minority groups about the dangers of eating fish from Lake Michigan and smaller, inland lakes that remain highly contaminated by toxic chemicals. While the levels of heavy metals have declined significantly in the last 20 years, PCBs in the Great Lakes are still 100 times the amount that experts say is safe, according to a recent report by the agency tracking progress in lake water quality. The Washington, D.C.-based commission assesses Canadian and American efforts to implement the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, of which both countries are signatories. Beginning in the 1980s, numerous federal and university studies found evidence of birth defects and developmental disabilities in children whose mothers had eaten contaminated fish from the Great Lakes and some inland waters while pregnant.
Women can also pass toxins to their infants through breast milk.
The dangers posed by the chemicals are particularly difficult to warn people about because they do not cause immediate sickness, health officials say. Rather, the toxins collect in the body over time and can lead to serious illness in later life. While commercial sport fishing has been banned on Lake Michigan, low-income anglers still rely on lake fish to supplement their diets. The warnings were commonly handed out with fishing licenses to a predominantly male fishing population. But often the information never reached their wives, who traditionally cooked the catch.