Abnormal foetal development, a horror that had long been documented in developed countries as having resulted from environmental pollution, is now being detected in Malaysia.

At a national conference on sustainability in Kuala Lumpur, obstetrician and gynaecologist Dr Kulenthran Arumugam said the pollution of the country's rivers and seas is affecting humans even before they are born.

He said Malaysia is now experiencing similar effects of 'development' as companies dump their waste - thereby releasing toxins into the water system - while food is increasingly stored in plastic containers for convenience.

Among the manifestations of this, he said, is the increasing number of cases of baby girls with unformed external genitalia - a condition known as labial fusion, where their labia majora and minora have not 'differentiated' but remain fused.

"There is no (statistical) data on labial fusion here in Malaysia because there is still no effective surveillance system in place," Kulenthran said.

The conference is organised by a coalition of Malaysian environmental non-governmental organisations together with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Ministry of Energy, Water and Communications, as well as the Danish International Development Assistance.

Impact of toxicity

The culprit is the high levels of phthalate that are absorbed by foods stored in plastic materials, including those commonly used for hot 'take-aways'. These toxic chemicals are absorbed into the digestive system along with the food.

Phthalate have been found to disrupt sexual development in both male and female foetuses by preventing the proper maturation of their genitalia.

Kulenthran said he believes the similar occurrence of malformed testicles and penis in baby boys (known as hypospadius) have also increased recently.

The actual incidence of both hypospadius and labial fusion may be higher than the cases reported as these conditions often disappear with the onset of puberty, when the teenager's hormones correct the malformation naturally.

Kulenthran said Norway, Denmark, Sweden England and Hungary saw marked increases in the incidence of hypospadius in the 1970s and 1980s.

From 1968 to 1993, the number of hypospadius cases recorded in the US had doubled to 2,372.