What is the background of the Great Lakes Protocol?
The procedure used by the Fish and Boat Commission, Department of Environmental Protection and Department of Health (PA agencies) to make decisions about whether or not to issue fish consumption advice is called the “Protocol for a Uniform Great Lakes Sport Fish Consumption Advisory.” This protocol was developed for PCBs by the Great Lakes Sport Fish Consumption Advisory Task Force — a group of public health and natural resource agency specialists from the eight states bordering the Great Lakes — as a result of a charge provided in 1986 by the Great Lake Governor’s Toxic Agreement. The final protocol has gone through extensive national and international peer review before it was published in September 1993. The Pennsylvania agencies that serve on a fish consumption advisories working group have agreed that this public health risk assessment-based approach is appropriate to provide advice and information to those who choose to consume sport fish that have a known amount of PCBs. Altho
