UC Toxics News: Spring/Summer 2000
Table of Contents Next
Article
|
TSR&TP Director Develops Intellectual Exchanges with Argentina and Uruguay by Mika Pringle Tolson |
Jerry Last leans back in his chair, sipping
thoughtfully from the ornate metal straw topping a painted gourd full of yerba
mate, a popular caffeinated drink from South America. He crosses his legs,
white and black sneakers showing underneath the cuffs of his navy blue dockers.
The National University of Salta,
Argentina, where Jerry Last spent the first six weeks of his sabbatical.
|
"I was 7 or 8 weeks teaching a course
in Environmental Toxicology in Salta, which is in the northwest of Argentina.
I have never been anywhere that was more different than the lifestyle here.
But at the same time, Salta reminded me a great deal of Davis in its values,
its rural setting, and its agricultural focus. The people there were the warmest
and the most wonderful people I have met anywhere in the world. It was just
an absolutely wonderful experience from that perspective."
Last took 6 months off his usual research, teaching,
and administration schedule at UC Davis to share his knowledge of toxicology
and environmental issues in South America. Last has a Ph.D. in Biochemistry
and is a Professor of Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine in the Department
of Internal Medicine. In 1980, he became the first non-M.D. in a tenured position
in Internal Medicine at UC Davis. "The position in Pulmonary and Critical
Care Medicine was unusual for a Ph.D.," says Last, "but my research was in
an area where the Pulmonary Division had strong interests, the components
of the lung matrix, so it was a natural fit." His interest in toxicology came
from trying to develop animal models of lung disease and discovering that
some of the air pollutant gases like ozone and NO2 develop excellent models
of lung fibrosis. "I've ended up over the last 20 years between being a biochemist
looking at how molecules are made and being a toxicologist looking at how
lung metabolism is perturbed to make things that are abnormal."
Since 1985, Last has directed the UC Toxic Substances
Research & Teaching Program,
a UC systemwide program that funds research on toxic substances in the environment.
What he likes most about the position are the people he interacts with. "Through
the years I've made some real friends on the other campuses through the program,"
says Last. "I've had an opportunity to really understand better the University
of California as a system, rather than just the Davis campus." As Director
of the Toxics program, Last has become more and more involved in environmental
issues, from the perspective of preventing pollution before it happens as
well as cleaning it up.
In winter of 1999, Last was selected to teach environmental
science in a joint Fulbright exchange program with the state universities
of Argentina and Uruguay. The Fulbright award was the perfect opportunity
to blend different aspects of his career. "I had a strong sense that one of
the directions that the Toxics program should go, and the University should
go," says Last, "is to become more involved in international education, especially
with regard to third world countries."
The palatial government building
across from the University of the Republic in Montevideo, Uruguay.
|
The Fulbright program is a mechanism
of relieving isolation in small universities, to introduce students and faculty
to teaching new things. Last notes the program's success, "Some of the students
who go through the courses go back and modify how they teach, so there's a
ripple effect. That, of course, is the whole concept of the Fulbright program."
There is also a very personal component of the experience. Last elaborates,
"The Fulbright program is geared toward the kind of one-on-one interaction
that hopefully makes people in a place like northwest Argentina less aware
of the image of ugly Americans and more aware of Americans as individuals."
Last encountered a surprising amount of environmental
awareness in South America. "In both Argentina and Uruguay they have a strong
sense of the environment in the abstract," says Last. "Because of things
like global warming and the Montreal Protocol, there's a lot of consciousness
of
large-scale environmental issues." There is less awareness of the environment
in every day life. Water treatment in Montevideo and Buenos Aires, cities
with populations over 1 million and 9 million respectively, consists of
piping
the wastewater a half mile out into the river and forgetting about it. The
economies are disasters. Unemployment hovers around 40%, and the people feel
they can't afford the luxury of worrying about air and water quality. The
worst problems are those associated with poverty. Malnutrition, infectious
diseases, and people living in shacks and hovels are bigger concerns than
pollution.
Last sees South American countries looking to the
United States for answers, "They are seeking to import our regulatory framework,
but with an eye toward taxing multinational corporations, not cleaning up
the environment." Their economies are so fragile that Argentina and Uruguay
fear that they cannot impose the cost of cleanup on business without destroying
the business. "As the economies struggle to get into the world market," notes
Last, "they are falling further and further behind. They have enormous debt.
And just paying off the debt is a pressing burden. What they are looking for
is both a legal and scientific framework in which they can combine the desire
to grow and develop economically with at least some environmental protection."
It's no wonder, under these conditions, that feelings
of helplessness pervade. "A theme I kept hearing was our problems are so large
as to be insurmountable," says Last. The people recognize that they have serious
environmental problems, but they don't think they can do anything because
they don't have the money and infrastructure of developed countries. Last
provided a ray of hope, "I was able to point out to them that there are things
that don't cost a lot of money that can be used in any nation. I stressed
pollution prevention. I stressed approaches like Integrated Pest Management,
recycling and reuse - where the economics would not necessarily be impossible.
I think some of them started hearing the message that it isn't totally hopeless
and small efforts can have large outcomes."
 Jerry Last (middle of photo) is
treated as a distinguished visitor when he arrived to give a guest
lecture at the medical school inTucuman, Argentina.
|
Last also had occasion, although unplanned, to demonstrate that even wealthy countries make costly environmental mistakes.
One of his responsibilities in Argentina
was to travel and give specialized lectures at five different universities.
He was surprised at the medical school in Tucuman when they treated his visit
with all the pomp and pageantry of a distinguished visitor. The official
state
photographer was there to commemorate the event "and the flags of Argentina
and the U.S., the national anthems, formal ceremony, the rector of the university
patting me on the head," recalls Last. "It was very very different from Salta."
Last had been invited to give a three day program in environmental
toxicology at the medical school. But what they didn't tell him was that he
was also supposed to make a 45-minute presentation to the whole crowd at the
ceremony about what he would be lecturing on at the university. Fortunately,
he had prepared some extra things for his course in case he miscalculated
time. "One of the extra things happened to be a one hour talk I had on the
MTBE experience in California, " says Last, "so I presented that to them."
Jerry Last signs the book for
distinguished visitors to the National University of Tucuman, Argentina.
|
"It was a wonderful talk for this kind
of audience," says Last, "because it summarized that even if our science is
more sophisticated, and our government is more sophisticated, we can still
do the wrong things, which they could easily identify with. I talked about
the MTBE experience as an example of how people can try to do the right thing
and end up doing the wrong thing, and the importance of policy being informed
by science."
Though his sabbatical in South America ended in August of
1999, the experience continues to influence Last's life. He brought back some
of the culture in his 5 pound sack of yerba mate, gourd cups, and metal straws,
and he is maintaining the friendships and professional relationships he developed
while in Salta and Montevideo. 
Last
has high hopes that faculty and researchers from Uruguay will come to the
University of California. He drafted a memorandum of understanding between
the University of California through the Toxics program and the University
of the Republic in Uruguay, which has since been formalized. The exchange
also works in reverse. Last explains, "There's an opportunity for anyone here
at the University of California who wants to go to Montevideo to take advantage
of a formal existing relationship with the university."
Last hopes someday to return to Argentina and Uruguay. "I
would love to go back, more because of the people than anything else. I have
an active email correspondence with both groups, especially the group in Montevideo.
I'm expecting to have some exchanges, so the tie will be kept and the bridge
will be there. We'll see where it goes next."
Table of Contents Next Article