Women and children in Michigan may be at an above-average risk of poor health as a result of the federal government's failure to curb lake-polluting emissions of mercury, a neurotoxin that strikes pregnant women and results in learning disabilities in over 60,000 children each year. Michael R. Harbut , MD, of Wayne State, and the Karmanos Cancer Institute, said, "Although it is very difficult in any individual patient to know which health effect is caused by any single toxin, the fact is that disease processes caused by mercury exposure have significantly increased in the last 20 years."