A survey conducted last year by the Environment Agency showed that endocrine-disrupting chemicals, or environmental hormones, had been detected in most of Japan's water systems. It also indicated that dioxin in excess of standardized limits existed in the air in the Tokyo Metropolitan area and many other parts of the country. Organic chlorine insecticides like DDT and BHC and other chemicals such as PCB are still present in the fat and breast milk of healthy people, even though their use was banned 10 to 20 years ago. Moreover, we have recently learned that raw materials like bisphenol and plastic materials like phthalic acid ester leak out of plastic food containers.

We have all benefited greatly from petrochemical products created by 20th-century science and technology. The conveniences and comforts of our daily lives depend to a large extent on plastic products. The price has been high, however. Today, the country is flooded with chemical materials and their wastes. We now know that more than 70 chemical materials, including those mentioned above, disrupt the functions of hormones in humans and animals and reduce reproductive capability.

Some of the world's leading researchers and administrative officials gathered in Kyoto last December to discuss this situation at an international symposium on endocrine-disrupting chemicals, which was sponsored by the Environment Agency. The symposium confirmed that DDT and PCB in the environment are linked to feminization of males, masculinization of females, abnormalities in reproductive organs and a decrease in the incubation ratio, all of which are found in wild animals.