Endocrine disrupting chemicals released by plastics and chemicals into the environment have caused serious harm to the global ecosystem, giving rise to gender imbalance in fish and birds and lowering human sperm count, a group of scientists told a seminar in Taipei yesterday.
“Endocrine disrupting chemicals [EDC] are substances that act like hormones in human or animals’ endocrine systems. They disturb the functions of normal hormones and cause adverse effects,” National Tsing Hua University chemistry professor Ling Yong-chien (凌永健) said at the Fifth Conference on Environmental Hormones and Persistent Organic Pollutants.
When found in the environment, EDCs are also called environmental hormones, Ling said.
“Environmental hormones are everywhere — from car parts, clothes, perfumes and furniture, to foods or pesticides,” Ling said.
Citing a study conducted on black porgy — a type of fish that is a protandrous hermaphrodite, meaning they are born as functional males but about half change into females as they mature at around three years old — National Taiwan Ocean University professor Chang Ching-fong (張清風) said: “With exposure to female hormones in the environment, most of these fish become female by the age of one.”
Although the concentration of female hormones in the environment would not cause black porgy to become extinct, Chang said its fate could serve as a warning.
“If environmental hormones are blurring the issue of gender in wildlife today, could humans be next?” Ling asked.
Adverse effects have already been observed, Ling said.
For example, polybrominated diphenyl ethers, a flame retardant commonly found in building materials, electronic products, furnishings, clothes, and even polyurethane foams that children play with may cause impaired nerve growth, he said.
Bisphenol A, a chemical that is released from baby bottles when heated, can give rise to male sexual dysfunction, he said.
“Studies have found that there has been a linear regression of mean sperm density in advanced Western countries over the past five decades. Men today are observed to have about half of the sperm density of their ancestors 50 years ago,” Ling said.
Ling said governments should continue to monitor these chemicals in the environment and amend laws to discourage manufacturers from using them.
At the same time, consumers should ask what materials are used in the products they purchase and learn more about their effects.
“Before consumers make a purchase, they should stop and read the ingredients and make informed choices,” Ling said.
COLLABORATION: As TSMC is building an advanced wafer fab in Dresden, Germany, it needs to build a comprehensive supply chain in Europe, Joseph Wu said Taiwan is planning to team up with the Czech Republic to build a semiconductor cluster in the European country, National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said on Friday. Wu, who led a Taiwanese delegation at the annual GLOBSEC Forum held in Prague from Friday to today, said in a news conference that Taiwan seeks to foster cooperation between Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) and its counterparts in Czechia. Such cooperation is expected to transform the country into one of the most important semiconductor clusters in Europe over the next three to five years, he added. As TSMC is building an advanced
A joint declaration by Pacific leaders was reissued yesterday morning with mentions of Taiwan removed after China slammed an earlier version as a “mistake” that “must be corrected.” After five days of talks in Tonga, a “cleared” communique was released on Friday that reaffirmed a 30-year-old agreement allowing Taiwan to take part in the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF). However, the wording immediately raised the ire of Chinese diplomats, who piled pressure on Pacific leaders to amend the document. The forum reissued the communique without explanation yesterday morning, conspicuously deleting the paragraph concerning the bloc’s “relations with Taiwan.” “It must be a
A tropical depression in waters east of the Philippines could develop into a tropical storm as soon as today and bring rainfall as it approaches, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday, while issuing heat warnings for 14 cities and counties. Weather model simulations show that there are still considerable differences in the path that the tropical depression is projected to take. It might pass through the Bashi Channel to the South China Sea or turn northeast and move toward the sea south of Japan, CWA forecaster Yeh Chih-chun (葉致均) said, adding that the uncertainty of its movement is still high,
China lacks the ability to “fully” invade Taiwan as it does not have the equipment, but is bringing online advanced new weapons and has other options to threaten Taiwan, such as inspecting foreign cargo ships, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said yesterday. In an annual threat assessment of China sent to lawmakers, a copy of which was reviewed by Reuters, the ministry said Beijing continues to hone skills such as joint command operations. “However, the use of tactics and strategies against Taiwan is still limited by the natural geographical environment of the Taiwan Strait and insufficient landing equipment and logistic capabilities,”