The Second Meeting of the International Society for Trace Element Research in Humans (ISTERH) was held in Tokyo from August 28 through September 1,1989. On August 27, the day preceding the opening of the meeting, a typhoon made a direct attack on Tokyo, welcoming guests from all over the world in a rather violent way. To our great relief, the weather during the week of the meeting turned out to be exceptionally agreeable for that time of year in Tokyo. We were also pleased to see the entire scheduled course of the meeting, including the social activities, carried out smoothly and the contents...