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wxxi NewsRoom "Leaked Study Says Great Lakes Residents at Greater Health Risk" ROCHESTER, NY (2008-02-19)

A study done by the Centers for Disease Control says as many as nine million people living along the U.S. side of the Great Lakes could be at higher risk for health problems because of chemical pollution.

More than 300-thousand Rochester-area people fall within that study area. But people living in the Rochester area are better off than most, because the one recognized "Area of Concern" waste site in Monroe County has been cleaned up by the City of Rochester and is no longer leaking pollutants to Lake Ontario.

This report was written by the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry of the CDC. It compared public health records on people living near the 26 known "areas of concern" along the Great Lakes with the general population. It found greater levels of infant mortality in all of those AOCs --and of premature births in four of them. It also found elevated death rates from breast cancer, colon cancer, and lung cancer." --from WXXI