A UC Davis physiologist has been invited to help a consortium of nine Asian nations monitor estrogen-like agricultural and industrial pollutants in the environment. Michael Fry, an internationally recognized authority on endocrine-disrupting pollutants, was asked to join a program designed to investigate pollutants in Asia's coastal ecosystems. The second phase of the program will focus on endocrine disrupters -- pollutants that mimic hormones or interfere with the endocrine systems of humans and wildlife. "They have a huge job addressing pollution problems in Asia," says Fry. "Some of these countries are gearing up for widespread use of pesticides, many of which are now banned in the United States and Europe." He noted that even DDT, outlawed in the U.S. and Europe because it causes devastating thinning of egg shells in birds of prey and seabirds, is still used legally for malaria mosquito control in Asia. Because endocrine-disrupting chemicals mimic the hormones governing the finely tuned reproductive systems of humans and wildlife, they can trigger a host of abnormalities such as malformed testes in sea birds, reversed sexual characteristics and behaviors in song birds and irregular reproductive tracts in otters and mink. Used both in agriculture and industry, these chemicals can be found in such common products as pesticides, paints, plastics, floor wax and shoe polish. The Asian program is co-sponsored by the United Nations' Tokyo-based U.N. University and Shimadzu Corporation, a Japanese analytical instruments firm. The participating nations are Japan, Korea, China, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.