Issue 1: April - June 2000

 

Symposium Examines Threat to East
Asians from Endocrine Disrupters

The threat posed by endocrine disrupting chemicals to the people of East Asia and their coastal ecosystems was the focus of an international symposium organized by UNU and the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, April 17 - 18, 2000.

EDCs can interfere with the reproductive, growth and metabolic hormones in humans and animals, resist natural degradation processes, and accumulate in increasing levels through the food chain.

Several animal species in the East Asian coastal hydrosphere - particularly marine mammals at the top of the food chain - are suffering adverse health effects from EDC exposure.

EDC pollution sources include domestic and industrial wastes and agricultural pesticide runoff. Rapid industrial development and increased agricultural reliance on chemicals in the region have heightened the risk to coastal ecosystems.

The symposium at the University of Malaya, conducted in cooperation with the Shimadzu Corporation of Japan, was the second of a UNU series on EDCs in the East Asian freshwater and coastal sea water.

Presenting the latest research were representatives and researchers from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); University of California, Berkeley (USA); National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES, Japan); University of Messina (Italy); and Ocean Research
Institute (ORI) of the University of Tokyo (Japan).

Representatives from China, Indonesia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Viet Nam presented the status of coastal pollution in their countries - a monitoring effort under UNU's Coastal Hydrosphere project. Following the symposium,  representatives attended a three-day training workshop.

For further information:
UNU Public Affairs Section
Tel. (03) 5467-1243, -1246
Fax (03) 3406-7346
e-mail: Sudo@hq.unu.edu


HOME

Copyright © 2000 United Nations University. All rights reserved.
Revised: January 19, 2004