Synopsis of “The 4~(th) International Academic Conference on Environmental and Occupational Medicine”

The 4th international academic conference on environmental and occupational medicine was held successfully in Kunming,a beautiful place well-known as "Spring City" which is the capital of Yunnan province of China on Oct. 16 through 19, 2006. This conference was sponsored by Journal of Environmental and Occupational Medicine(JEOM),China;Shanghai Center for Disease Control and Prevention(SCDC),China;Department of Health Service(DHS-EHIB),California,USA;School of Public Health,Kunming Medical College,China;Shanghai Preventive Medicine Association(SPMA),China;and cosponsored by Environmental Health Perspectives(EHP),USA;International Society of Environmental Epidemiology(ISEE);Shanghai Institute of Preventive Medicine,China;WHO Collaborating Center for Occupational Health(Shanghai),China;School of Public Health, Fudan University,China;and Shanghai Environmental Mutagen Society,China. There were 33 foreign experts from 10 different countries and 205 domestic participants as well took part in this wonderful conference. After Prof. Zhang Sheng-nian,the director of SCDC,announced the opening of this conference with a brief speech which won the first applause,38 specialists issued their excellent speeches at the plenary meeting and three different forums during the conference. The participants joined all kinds of discusses actively. 227 received papers may be summarized as the following manner. Environmental medicine is no doubt one of the focused fields. Dr. Kenneth Olden,the ex-director of NIEHS indicated that interactions between multiple genes or between genes and environmental agents should be considered in studies on the causes of human illness. Dr. Raymond Neutra and Dr. Richard Kreutzer,the officers of DHS,California,introduced the role of public health in chemical disasters and the assessing on the public health impacts of contaminated sites respectively. Prof. John Petterson from University of California introduced the effect of global climate change on human health in China. Prof. Sanae Matsuzaki,one of the scientists responsible for the health effects of the environmental chemicals in Japan,introduced that the exhaust gases from the plastic garbage could induce "Suginami Disease" which was characterized with respiratory distress,pain of eyes,nose or throat. Prof. Chen Xue-ming,summarized the development of environmental medicine in China and Prof. Chen Bing-heng illustrated the integrative assessment of environmental health with an example study in Shanghai. In the occupational medicine field,Prof. Li De-hong,the chief occupational health expert of CDC China,described the occupational health status and basic occupational health service in developing countries. Besides,Dr. Zheng Yu-xin investigated the biomarkers of anaphylaxis induced by occupational exposure to trichloroethylene. Dr. Heikal from Egypt researched the comparative biochemical and histopathological effects of a new natural insecticide "spinosad" and an organophosphorus insecticide "malathion" on male albino rats. Prof. Zhang Jin-liang from Peking University reviewed the residue level of DDT in soil and food in China and analyzed the accumulative level of DDT in human body. There were many scientists paid attention to the psychological factors,such as "Measurement of psychosocial factors in workplace"(Li Jian et al)," Study on occupational strain of teachers with different characters in primary and middle school in Xinjiang province"(Liu Ji-wen et al),"Effects of occupational stress on the immune response of women and men working in a university"(Prof. Paolo Boscolo et al),"Effect of occupational stress on dopamine and IL-6 level in plasma of traffic policemen"(Yu Hui-zhu et al). In the field of toxicology,there were almost 40 articles. Dr. Robert Kavlock introduced the computational toxicology to us and indicated it was a new approach to improve environmental health protection. Dr. Chen Fan-qing explored the adverse biological impacts of nano-particle assessed by molecular profiling. Prof. Jin Tai-yi described the relationship between response proteins and cellular toxic effect with an example of metallothionein and renal dysfunction caused by cadmium exposure. Prof. He Ji-liang investigated the genetic instability and expression of four DNA-repair-related proteins in the peripheral lymphocytes of 36 untreated lung cancer patients. Studies on policies,regulations and strategies were also discussed at this conference. Prof. Domyung Paek who came from Korea pointed out the key role of the change of strategy towards the better understanding and improvement of occupational health status such as SEEA model. Dr. Lu Wei,deputy director of SCDC,listed six strategies for prevention and control of diseases caused by environmental and occupational hazards. Prof. Liang You-xin explored the relationship between occupational health legislation and social responsibility of corporations. Prof. Liu Ping investigated the challenges and strategies existing in rural area,agriculture and farmer's health. There were more than 20 articles focused on the epidemiology research. Hung-Yi Chiou from Taiwan studied the association between human sex hormone,erectile dysfunction and environmental exposure to arsenic. Another Taiwan scholar Bor-Cheng Han discussed the relationship between blood mercury and fish consumption in Taiwanese pregnant women. Prof. Meng Zi-qiang studied the association of dust events with daily respiratory hospitalization by time series approach. Li Rui and Zheng Ying performed the epidemiological survey on type 2 diabetes in Shanghai and the epidemiological study on alpha-fetoprotein and liver ultrasonography for liver cancer screening in people with high risk factors in communities in Shanghai respectively. In the aspect of methodology research,besides the computational toxicology introduced by Dr. Kavlock,Prof. F. Benjamin Zhan demonstrated the GIS-augmented environmental health research. Ding Zhen from CDC of Jiangsu Province researched the photocatalytic degradation of formaldehyde and VOCs in air by nanometer TiO2 loaded on porous nickel mesh. Wang Wen-jing from SCDC used SELDI protein chip technologyto discover the new serum biomarkers for gastric cancer. In conclusion,there were lots of excellent articles shown at this conference and could not be all mentioned in this abstract. Proceedings of this conference is available and can be obtained by contacting us through e-mail,fax or telephone. The 5th international academic conference on environmental and occupational medicine will be held in 2008 in China. You will be welcome to join in.