The Center for Public Integrity has launched a new website called "Great Lakes Danger Zones?." The website contains excerpts from a 400+ page study titled "Public Health Implications of Hazardous Substances in the Twenty-Six U.S. Great Lakes Areas of Concern" that has been blocked from release by the nation's top health agency--the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention--since July 2007.

The study, which was commissioned at the request of the International Joint Commission (a bilateral independent organization that advises the United States and Canada on water quality), found considerable problems with water quality in the Great Lakes. Clearly, with Michigan being bordered by the Great Lakes, this is an important issue. A summary of the study by the Center for Public Integrity states that the study:

"...warns that more than nine million people who live in the more than two dozen "areas of concern"--including such major metropolitan areas as Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and Milwaukee--may face elevated health risks from being exposed to dioxin, PCBs, pesticides, lead, mercury, or six other hazardous pollutants.

In many of the geographic areas studied, researchers found low birth weights, elevated rates of infant mortality and premature births, and elevated death rates from breast cancer, colon cancer, and lung cancer."

Yet, despite being reviewed by scientists since 2004, the CDC decided not to release it just days before its scheduled July 2007 release. While the CDC has Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) has said that the study needs more review, scientists contacted by the Center for Public Integrity say that it is more likely that it has not been released because it raises uncomfortable points about the relationship between industrial pollution in the Great Lakes and human health.