Speaking of suppressed research and political manipulation of science, there is a distressing story emerging today about a report on health hazards stemming from pollution in the Great Lakes. The report is so alarming that the federal government apparently thought it best that the public not be able to read it. So even though a division of the Centers for Disease Control finished the report last summer, it was never released.

Luckily, we can thank the Center for Public Integrity for discovering the suppressed study and reporting on the back story that kept the findings from public view for more than six months. The center has also published excerpts from the still un-released report.

Just how bad is it? The CPI sums it up nicely:

"[The report] warns that more than nine million people who live in the more than two dozen “areas of concern”—including such major metropolitan areas as Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and Milwaukee—may face elevated health risks from being exposed to dioxin, PCBs, pesticides, lead, mercury, or six other hazardous pollutants. In many of the geographic areas studied, researchers found low birth weights, elevated rates of infant mortality and premature births, and elevated death rates from breast cancer, colon cancer, and lung cancer."

The lead author of the 400-page study -- Chris De Rosa of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry -- has criticized the agency for withholding the findings. He's also been demoted by the ATSDR.

Michael Gilbertson, a Canadian biologist who peer-reviewed the report, told the Washington Post that he agrees with De Rosa: "This information, which really should have been distributed more than a year ago, is inconvenient to the administration."

Federal officials say the report has has been delayed because of "significant questions and concerns" about the quality of the study. The Center for Public Integrity has tried to speak with De Rosa, but ATSDR’s public affairs office has declined to make him available for comment.