I never post on the weekends. 5 days a week is about all I can handle but this is so freaking out there that I just had to put it up. This fact is mostly an insult to the world at large because of DDT’s continued destruction 50 years after its ban. I mean what else is out there and how will it kill us? But the other part is the response to the fact that toxins in fish can cause diabetes is that “health” officials are telling us that fish are good for us, and the seeming indifference to what should be major emotional outbursts. They are “cutting back on their consumption”. Not trying to find the people responsible and kill them. How civilized.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/chi-fish-diabetes-bdaug23,0,7994362.story

Toxins in Lake Michigan fish linked to diabetes

By Vanessa McMains Tribune reporter

August 23, 2009

This is a fish tale in which smaller is better than bigger, especially if the catch is to be eaten in any quantity.

That’s because a new study of Great Lakes boat captains over 15 years found a correlation between the chemical DDE and diabetes. Those who ate more fish had more DDE in their blood and were more likely to develop diabetes, according to results published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives in July.

DDE is produced in the bodies of small bottom-feeding fish from ingesting the prevalent pesticide DDT. The chemical transfers to bigger fish when they eat smaller fish and then accumulates in the fat and liver of people who eat lots of what they catch.

“Sports fishermen are at the top of the food chain,” said Bruce Fowler, assistant director of science at the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which funded the study, along with the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

Charter boat captains tend to catch and eat more fish than the average recreational fisherman. But the captains care about their health, said Henry Anderson of the Wisconsin Division of Public Health, who managed the study.

“Many saw that their levels were high from the study and they cut back on their intake of fish,” he said.

Exactly how DDE may lead to diabetes is unknown. Another pesticide, Agent Orange, can cause diabetes, but it’s believed to do so in a different way than DDE, said Mary Turyk, an assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and lead author of the study

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