Dawe C J
Department of Pathology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115.
Environ Health Perspect. 1990 Jun;86:245-55. doi: 10.1289/ehp.9086245.
Human health and aquatic animal health are organically related at three distinct interfaces. Aquatic animals serve as important contributors to the nutritional protein, lipid, and vitamin requirements of humans; as carriers and transmitters of many infectious and parasitic diseases to which humans are susceptible; and as indicators of toxic and carcinogenic substances that they can convey, in some part, from aquatic environments to man and other terrestrial animals. Transcending these relationships, but less visible and definable to many, is the role that aquatic animals play in the sustenance of our integrated planetary ecosystem. Up to the present, this ecosystem has been compatible with mankind's occupation of a niche within it at high but ultimately limited population levels. In the past century we have become clearly aware that human activities, particularly over-harvesting of aquatic animals together with chemical degradation of their habitats, can quite rapidly lead to perturbances that drastically shift aquatic ecosystems toward conditions of low productivity and impaired function as one of earth's vital organs. The negative values of aquatic animals as disease vectors are far outweighed by their positive values as nutritional sources and as sustainers of a relatively stable equilibrium in the global ecosystem. In the immediate future we can expect to see increased and improved monitoring of aquatic habitats to determine the extent to which aquatic animals cycle anthropogenic toxic and carcinogenic chemicals back to human consumers. In the long term, methods are particularly needed to assess the effects of these pollutants on reproductive success in aquatic communities and in human communities as well. As inputs of habitat-degrading substances change in quality and quantity, it becomes increasingly urgent to evaluate the consequences in advance, not in retrospect. A new, more realistic and comprehensive philosophy regarding aquatic environmental preservation and equally new and comprehensive technological advances reflective of this philosophy will be required. In the next century we will see a serious test of whether or not mankind has lost its ability to foresee and forestall the side effects of scientific and technological ingenuity.
人类健康与水生动物健康在三个不同层面上存在有机联系。水生动物是人类营养蛋白质、脂质和维生素需求的重要提供者；是许多人类易感染的传染病和寄生虫病的携带者和传播者；还是有毒和致癌物质的指示生物，它们能将这些物质部分地从水生环境传递给人类和其他陆生动物。超越这些关系，但对许多人来说不太明显且难以界定的是水生动物在维持我们整个地球生态系统方面所起的作用。到目前为止，这个生态系统一直与人类在其中占据的生态位相适应，人类人口数量虽高但最终有限。在过去的一个世纪里，我们清楚地意识到，人类活动，特别是对水生动物的过度捕捞以及对其栖息地的化学破坏，会相当迅速地导致扰动，使水生生态系统急剧转向低生产力和功能受损的状态，而水生生态系统是地球的重要器官之一。水生动物作为疾病传播媒介的负面价值，远远低于它们作为营养来源以及全球生态系统相对稳定平衡维持者的正面价值。在不久的将来，我们有望看到对水生生境的监测得到加强和改进，以确定水生动物将人为有毒和致癌化学物质循环回人类消费者的程度。从长远来看，尤其需要评估这些污染物对水生群落和人类群落繁殖成功率的影响。随着栖息地退化物质的输入在质量和数量上发生变化，提前而非事后评估后果变得越来越紧迫。需要一种新的、更现实和全面的水生环境保护理念，以及反映这一理念的同样新的和全面的技术进步。在下个世纪，我们将看到对人类是否已丧失预见和预防科技创新副作用能力的严峻考验。
