Academics bid to transcend theArab–Israeli conflict

news

NATURE | VOL 408 | 7 DECEMBER 2000 | www.nature.com 631

David Cyranoski, TokyoThe clean-air movement in Japan scored asignificant victory last week when a courtjudged that vehicle exhaust and industrialemissions had adverse effects on humanhealth. Scientific evidence was pivotal in thecourt’s ruling.

Ending an 11-year court battle, theNagoya district court ordered the Japanesegovernment to pay ¥18 million (US$167,000)and a group of ten industrial companies topay ¥289 million to victims of pollution.

Although small in financial terms, theruling is likely to have far-reaching implica-tions for Japan’s air-pollution policies. Thecourt also directed the government toenforce policies that will keep the concentra-tion of particulates in the air to below thelimits set by Japan’s Environment Agency.

The Ministry of Health confirmed thatthe plaintiffs were suffering from pollution-related diseases. And the court, after hearingepidemiological evidence, judged that par-ticulates in the air could lead to such illnessesas “life-threatening bronchial asthma”.

Two studies were particularly influential,observers say. One was a ten-year epidemio-logical study by the School of Public Healthat Chiba University on the rates of asthma inschoolchildren living close to major roads.According to Masayuki Shima, a researcheron the study, their results showed that thelikelihood of developing asthma was 3.7times higher than average in boys and 5.9times higher in girls who lived within 50metres of busy roads. The researchers atChiba attribute the difference to particulatesfrom diesel exhaust.

In the second study, the EnvironmentAgency’s National Institute for Environmen-tal Studies (NIES) found a clear connectionbetween particulates and animal health.When mice were made to inhale dieselexhaust, they developed asthmatic symp-toms and suffered damage to their reproduc-tive organs. The results of five years’ researchwere released last year in a NIES report.

The Environment Agency and the tencompanies have questioned the court’s inter-pretation of these results. One EnvironmentAgency official says: “There are so manythings that are still uncertain. It is quite pos-sible that the effect on humans is differentfrom that on mice. Likewise, it is hard to saythat the high levels of exhaust given to the labanimals are anything like those experiencedby people in real life.”

Masaru Sagai of Aomori University ofHealth and Welfare, who led the researchteam at NIES, responds: “It is necessary andscientific to extrapolate from experimentalresults — for example, from the effect of highdoses over a short time to the effect of lowdoses over a long time.”

Environmentalists say these problemswould stand a better chance of resolution ifthe government were to invest seriously inenvironmental research. Compared with theUnited States, in particular, “Japan spendsvery little on researching and monitoring theeffects of pollution”, says Takao Nishimura,an environmental lawyer who has beeninvolved in many such cases.

And there is some concern that successfullawsuits may diminish the government’sinterest in supporting pollution research.Last January, a similar ruling was given inAmagasaki, and in the months that followed,research projects allocated to Chiba Univer-sity by the regional governments of Tokyoand Chiba were cut off.

Critics allege that the funding was with-drawn because of the governments’ fearsabout the power such data would give peoplesuing government agencies. But Shima sayshe has no reason to doubt that the cuts weremade for the official reason given, namelythe financial straits of the sponsors.

Even with financial support, says Sagai,his research has had little effect. “Once itbecame clear that my research on mice pro-duced results that were disadvantageous tothe agency, they ignored it altogether.” ■

➧ http://www.nies.go.jp

Haim WatzmanJoint research projects between Israeliand Arab scientists are continuing despitethe current confrontation, but at areduced level, scientists in the region say.

A study last summer counted 132projects in the natural sciences involvingcollaboration by researchers from Israeland the Palestinian authority or otherArab countries.

There has been no comprehensivesurvey on the status of these projectssince the outbreak of Israeli–Palestinianviolence in September. But although someactivities have been cancelled andmilitary restrictions on travel have madeit difficult for Palestinian students toreach Israeli campuses, researchers saythat individual cooperation continues asmuch as possible.

Several international scientificconferences scheduled to take place inIsrael have been delayed or switched toother venues. The most important wasthat of the Red Sea research programme,an oceanographic and environmentalendeavour involving scientists fromIsrael, Palestine, Jordan and Egypt.

Immediately after the outbreak ofviolence, some scientists lost touch.Moein Kan’an, for example, a researcherat Bethlehem University who is involvedin several projects with Israeli scientists,says that for the first two weeks of theconflict he heard nothing from his Israeliresearch partners. “We had a serious talkand resolved that we were going toproceed,” says Doron Lancet of theWeizmann Institute of Science, who isworking on a project with Kan’an.

The Israel Academy of Sciences andHumanities held a day-long seminar lastsummer to evaluate scholarly cooperationbetween Israelis and Arabs. Many Israelischolars voiced their belief that sciencewas one field in which this was increasing,although others expressed doubts. ■

Japan makes polluters payafter landmark court ruling

Breathe, don’t breathe: aJapanese court has linkedtraffic fumes with childhoodasthma.

AP

JIM

HO

LME

S/E

NV

IRO

NM

EN

TAL

IM

AG

ES

Brave face: but confrontation is taking its toll.

© 2000 Macmillan Magazines Ltd