b. Consortium for Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation (CRESP), and Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences

Recreational and subsistence fishing play a major role in the lives of many people, although most Americans obtain their fish from supermarkets or other commercial sources. Fish consumption has increased generally in recent years, largely because of the nutritional benefits of eating fish. Recent concerns about contaminants in fish have prompted federal and state agencies to analyze fish (especially freshwater fish targeted by recreational anglers) for contaminants, such as mercury and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and to issue fish consumption advisories to help reduce the public health risks where warranted. Scientists engaged in environmental sampling, collect fish by a variety of means, and analyze the contaminants in those fish. Risk assessors use these levels as the basis for their advisories. Two assumptions of this methodology are that scientists collect th