June 2010

The ASSE’s annual conference, “Safety 2010,” held on June 13-16 in Baltimore, included two presentations about aspects of nanotechnology risk and safety.

1. Nanomaterials: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
(Leslie C. Caskey, Christopher W. Kolbash)

2. Nanotechnolog-E: Explosivity and Environmental Risks
(Louise E. Vallee, Julia C. Bradley, Erik G. Olsen)

If you are interested, these presentations are available for purchase from the ASSE website. http://www.asse.org/education/pdc10/

I briefly summarize the first presentation below.

Environmental group Friends of the Earth (FoE) this week launched a summer advertising and public education campaign asserting that sunscreens containing manufactured nanoparticles could threaten human and environmental health.  See the link below:
http://foe.org/public-warned-about-nanosunscreen-risks

“What many beachgoers and others enjoying the summer sun don’t know is that the sunscreens they’re using contain manufactured nanoparticles that pose health risks,” said Friends of the Earth’s health and environment campaigner, Ian Illuminato. “What more and more studies are showing is that manufactured nanoparticles may be able to damage cells and have harmful health repurcussions. They also pose risks to workers and the environment, and there’s no evidence that they make sunscreens more effective at blocking the sun’s harmful rays.”

Friends of the Earth has placed an overview of what it says is the latest research related to nanosunscreens and human health at http://foe.org/healthy-people/nanosunscreens, and is advertising the web page via ads on several websites.

Nanotechnology can enhance the flavor and other sensory characteristics of foods, introduce antibacterial nanostructures into food packaging, and encapsulate and deliver nutrients directly into targeted tissues, among other applications. However, as with any new technology, along with the benefits, there is the potential for unanticipated adverse effects.

There is still a great deal to learn about any health outcomes related to introducing nanosized materials into foods and food packaging materials. Developing nanotechnology into a safe, effective tool for use in food science and technology will require addressing these and other questions.

There is a robust debate about the appropriate use of nanotechnologies in the food/agriculture industry when open questions remain about consumer safety, as I observed in Part I of this series of posts on June 3, 2010.

I suggest two additional sources of information for folks interested in the nanotechnology food safety issue:

A report titled "Nanotechnology, Health and the Environment" will be presented at the Nano Science and Technology Institute's (NSTI) “Nanotech Conference & Expo 2010” in Anaheim, CA, June 21-24, 2010. 

The report is available for download at Nanotechnology - Greenberg Traurig, LLP.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the Mountain and Plains Education and Research Center will hold a conference on "Nanomaterials and Worker Health: Medical Surveillance, Exposure Registries, and Epidemiologic Research."

The conference will be held on July 21–23, 2010, at the Keystone Resort and Conference Center in Keystone, Colorado.

NIOSH, part of CDC, is the federal agency legislatively established under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 that conducts research to prevent work-related injury, illness, and death.  NIOSH has been perhaps more active than any other U.S. federal agency so far in nanoparticle EHS research and I discuss the body of information available from NIOSH concerning whether nanomaterials pose risks for occupational illness at my earlier post, NIOSH Nanotechnology Health & Safety Update: Updated, Enhanced Web Resources Posted 12/8/09.

Carbon nanotubes and other carbon nanomaterials are now, and are expected to remain, the most commonly used nanomaterial in industrial applications. They are also used in a wide variety of consumer products and that trend is expected to continue. Early research has already raised questions, if not concerns, about the environmental, health, and safety risks of some carbon nanomaterials, such as single-and multi-walled carbon nanotubes.

Twelve (12) leading companies involved in the commercialization of carbon nanomaterials and products recently formed the NanoSafety Consortium for Carbon ("NCC") to address nanoscale carbon environmental, health, and safety issues related to the responsible commercialization of their products.

The NCC website is designed to inform the public about its activities.

I recommend that you add to your “nanolinks” for regular reading the NanoLaw Blog, hosted by Widener University Law School.

The NanoLaw Blog Mission Statement: Nanotechnology has been around for a while, but it is becoming more pervasive as new products and applications appear. The National Nanotechnology Initiative lists developing uses as diverse as cancer treatments, nerve regeneration, efficient solar energy, and both industrial and consumer product enhancement. Notwithstanding this burst of technological ingenuity, the impact of nanotechnology on human health and the environment has been only sparsely studied, and nanotechnology is virtually unregulated in the United States. Without information regarding the impacts of nanotechnology, agencies entrusted with making regulatory decisions regarding applications that use the technology – such as OSHA, FDA, and EPA – cannot effectively regulate. As an emerging technology with unknown risks, nanotechnology is likely to follow the path of other toxic torts in the areas of both private law and public law. The purpose of this site is to raise legal questions about the impact of nanotechnology and comment upon the ways in which those questions are likely to be raised in the legal system.

With the permission of the NanoLaw Blog I have below reproduced one of the recent posts, an interesting discussion of the legal significance of early nanomaterial studies of environmental, health and safety. You will find it interesting.

. . . then you simply must start becoming knowledgeable, if not expert, on the uses of nanotechnology in agriculture and food production, food products, food processing, and food packaging. It is going to be a significant growth area and an expected litigation field within the food safety/toxic exposure arena.

I'd suggest you might do a couple things to get started:

“Nanotoxicology 2010” will be held from June 2nd – June 4th 2010, at Edinburgh Napier University, Edinburgh, Scotland.

Speakers presenting at Nanotoxicology 2010 are an esteemed international group of highly respected nanotechnology experts from industry, government, and academia in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia.

The conference will take place over 3 days, and will be divided into sections that allow focus on specific types of nanomaterials including carbon nanotubes (the most commonly used nanomaterial in industrial applications), nanometals (such as nanosilver, increasingly common in consumer products), and nanometal oxides (such as nano-titanium dioxide and nano-zinc oxide, the nanomaterials most widely used in consumer products currently).