Overall this report presents a multi-faceted message of interest to environmental health specialists, policy-makers and the 36 million Canadian and U.S. citizens who live in communities surrounding the Great Lakes. Researchers know more about environmental health issues in the region than they ever did. This report summarizes detailed research on a range of priority contaminants including PCBs, lead and mercury.

This report contains a detailed review of the literature on contaminants, exposure, and health effects of those contaminants in the Great Lakes basin. The report is based on a series of papers prepared for the Great Lakes Health Effects Program, and is supplemented by additional data from related studies. After an introduction on health concerns in the basin and an overview of priority contaminants (organochlorines, metals, radionuclides, microbes, and airborne contaminants), further sections of the review cover the following topics: adverse health effects of persistent environmental contaminants in fish and wildlife; biomarkers for exposure and health effects; human exposure to chemical contaminants and their health effects; reproductive and developmental effects; neurotoxicity; immunotoxic effects; cancer incidence in the basin; health effects associated with radionuclides; Great Lakes water quality and effects associated with microbial contaminants; air quality and associated respiratory health effects; and overall conclusions.

This study describes the assessments of human exposure to 11 priority contaminants identified in the 1994 Canada-Ontario Agreement. These assessments incorporate exposure of the population to persistent contaminants through the ingestion of food and water, the incidental ingestion of soil and house dust and the inhalation of ambient and indoor air.

At head of title : A regional product of the Global Environment Outlook 3 report process.