Society Builds Sustainability in Africa

Abstract

With the speed of industrialization in today’s global community, the costs of disparities in environmental health and risk assessment can be dangerously high in developing countries without broad, stable regulatory and protective measures in place. Addressing capacity-building problems will depend largely upon the implementation of proactive measures within the borders of these developing nations—measures that participants sought to create at the Risk Assessment and Quality Assurance Training Workshop of the African Society for Toxicological Sciences (ASTS), held 21–28 October 2006 in Limbe, Cameroon. The workshop was cosponsored by the NIEHS as part of its efforts to expand global environmental health initiatives, as outlined in the institute’s Strategic Plan. Forty-seven experts in toxicology research, environmental policy, and government from Cameroon, Nigeria, Sudan, South Africa, the United States, and Europe convened for the purpose of generating ideas for new sustainable development initiatives. Attendees also took part in training modules and a site visit to a local oil refinery. Sanmi Areola, a toxicologist with the Metro Nashville/Davidson County (Tennessee) Public Health Department and incoming ASTS president, says that organizations such as the ASTS serve as necessary bridges of communication between developed and developing nations. “Continuing and emerging environmental [and] public health issues present differently in Africa compared to the developed countries of the world primarily because of the lack of enforceable policies and regulations and the nonexistence of infrastructures, [which are] poor where and when they exist,” says Areola. He explains that the negative impacts of environmental stressors on public health in Africa are exacerbated by poverty, political instability, urbanization, and overpopulation, among other factors. “These issues must be addressed through a multifaceted, multidisciplinary, region-specific approach where the identification of hazards and characterization of the risks take into consideration the uniqueness of the African geopolitical and ecological divides,” he says. According to Areola, the ASTS is uniquely positioned to provide a platform and serve as the facilitator for a collaborative partnership with agencies from developed nations to build approaches for managing and alleviating these risks. In the past 10 years, the ASTS has built solid networking structures, working with policy makers, scientists, and agencies within and outside Africa. Outgoing ASTS president Hoffman Moka Lantum, director of practice variance with Excellus BlueCross BlueShield, agrees, saying that a multidisciplinary, international exchange of ideas has been and will continue to be integral to the success of the ASTS’s efforts. He points out that very few data are based on studies done in Africa despite exponential growth in the use of large-volume chemicals in the petrochemical, mining, agrochemical, textile, and food industries, plus disproportionate underlying disease and nutritional disorders from food deficiency and toxicity. “The effects of the chemical burden from imported new classes of drugs, detergents, and industrial hydrocarbons on the biology and ecology of Africa are largely unknown and unappreciated, and may never be talked about if our colleagues in developed countries do not participate in this [ongoing] discussion,” he says. Kenneth Olden, a founding member of the ASTS and past director of the NIEHS and the National Toxicology Program, says all parties can benefit from such collaborative efforts. “Environmental health issues are national in scope, so it is important that nations, including the United States, cooperate in research, training, and exchange of prevention and remediation technology. All nations, including the African nations, have much to contribute to environmental protection,” he says.