Annual report to: Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATDSR)

Abstract

We have completed the second year of a three year study for the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) to evaluate Native Americans at risk from the consumption of contaminated Great Lakes fish. The study was an expansion of a previous investigation by Dr. John A. Dellinger at the Red Cliff reservation near Bayfield, WI on the shore of Lake Superior. In the present study, investigators are working with numerous Ojibwa reservations throughout the upper Great Lakes region (Figure 1). These reservations include Grand Portage, MN, Bad River, WI, Keweenaw Bay, MI, Bay Mills, MI, Grand Traverse, MI, and Lac du Flambeau, WI. The last reservation is located approximately 100 miles inland from the Great Lakes. All other reservations are on the shoreline of Lakes Superior or Michigan. Each reservation is located in a relatively rural and seemingly pristine area of the upper Midwest and most reservations operate commercial fisheries as well as collecting fish for subsistence living. Therefore, Great Lakes fish are a major part of the lives of these people.