Proceedings of the WHO-NIEHS conference on potential environmental health hazards from technological developments in rubber and plastics industries. Research Triangle Park, N.C., March 1-3, 1976: Introductory statement.

It is a pleasure for me to welcome, on behalf of Dr. Mahler, Director-General of the World Health Organization, the participants in this Symposium on Potential Health Hazards from Technological Developments in the Rubber and Plastics Industries. At the same time, I should like to convey to the Government of the United States Dr. Mahler's appreciation of the generous support provided for this joint NIEHS/ WHO activity. WHO is particularly grateful to Dr. David Rall, Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and Head of the WHO Collaborating Centre on Environmental Health Effects, who first proposed this symposium, and to Dr. Hans L. Falk, Associate Director for Program, NIEHS, who carried the burden of its organization. It is appropriate to consider the present symposium as the second (international) phase of the NIEHS Conference on Public Health Implications of Components of Plastics Manufacture, which was held at Pinehurst, N.C. July 29-31, 1974 (1). One of the objectives of environmental health programs is the early identification of potential health hazards arising from adverse environmental situations, in order to design preventive measures capable of improving environmental conditions before the perturbations of community health parameters go beyond acceptable levels. The design of such preventive measures requires the application of technology forecasting to environmental health, i.e., the systematic surveillance, analysis, and evaluation of technological developments and assessment of the potentially adverse effects such developments may have on human health (2). This surveillance has to begin when a new process is still at the laboratory stage; it has to continue through the