Question - What is the National Lake Fish Study and what were the findings reported in this study?
Answer - The National Lake Fish Tissue Study, reported by the FDA, is the first national assessment of freshwater fish contamination in the United States for which sampling sites were selected according to a statistical (random) design. Results from the National Lake Fish Tissue Study indicate that mercury, PCBs, and dioxins and furans are widely distributed in lakes and reservoirs in the lower 48 states. Mercury and PCBs were detected in all the fish samples collected from the 500 sampling sites. Dioxins and furans were detected in 81% of the predator samples (fillet composites) and 99% of the bottom-dweller samples (whole-fish composites). (https://www.epa.gov/fish-tech/fish-tissue-data-collected-epa#results1; accessed May 2018)