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Nano Safety: Circles, or Slow Progress?
Created by assoceditor on 26/08/2011 10:50:43

A group of experts at the 5th International Symposium of Occupational Health Implications of Nanomaterials discussed whether progress is being made in nano safety research.


Are we making progress in nanotechnology safety research, or are we just going round in circles? 

This was the question posed by Andrew Maynard - Director of the Risk Science Centre at the University of Michigan School of Public Health - to a group of researchers, regulators and policy makers attending the 5th International Symposium of Occupational Health Implications of Nanomaterials held in Boston from the 9th - 12th August. Maynard stimulated the discussion by displaying a 'Wordle' word cloud, formed from the 69 recommendations made in a report published back in 2004 after the 1st International Symposium, aimed at the responsible development of nanotechnology.  

What stands out are familiar terms that still trouble today’s researchers: 'risk', 'exposure' and 'control'.

"If we look through those [recommendations], a lot of them look remarkably similar to those questions we’re asking today," said Maynard.

The answers to the question posed, reported by Gwyneth K. Shaw for the New Haven Independent, were at once critical and hopeful.

Paul Schulte, a top official at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), said there has been progress. But, he added, he’s concerned that manufacturers aren’t yet completely bought in to using the safety measures needed for proper development.  "There’s not enough emphasis on the end of the pipeline," he said.

Barbara Herr Harthorn, Director of the Center for Nanotechnology in Society at the University of California (CNS-UCSB), Santa Barbara, called safe development of nano-enabled products a "moving target." One of the key terms in the field these days is "responsible development," which means pushing manufacturers to use nanotechnology in the safest ways, to do the most useful things. But while there’s lots of talk, she said, "we don’t take as a given that we know what that means."

Other experts expressed concern that the work safety specialists are doing is not spreading into other segments of the nanotechnology world, raising questions about whether those developing new products understand the risks they may be taking - or passing on to consumers.

"Insights that this community has gained have not been adequately disseminated to the rest of the science and engineering community," said Hilary Godwin, a Professor and Researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). "We need to make sure we’re working hand-in-hand."

Looking around the crowded rooms at the symposium - hosted by the University of Massachusetts Lowell and the School’s Center for High-Rate Nanomanufacturing and Toxics Use Reduction Institute - it was clear that safety has an important seat at the table, Shaw reports. There’s no question that it’s a major shift since the 2004 symposium. Research funding, once concentrated on spurring innovation, is now flowing into the scrutiny of a broad array of nanomaterials, from carbon nanotubes to silica nanoparticles.  Yet while there are scores of scientific papers suggesting that some types of nanomaterials can affect humans and the environment, there are still a host of unanswered questions. How important is size, as opposed to the surface area, of a single particle? There seem to be crucial differences in how the exposure method (e.g. inhalation vs. ingestion) affects how nanomaterials behave in cells and organisms. There are also basic questions of scientific methodology, including whether performing experiments with very high doses of the substance under review yield skewed results.  Practical concerns are abound, too: how to minimise the impact on workers, and how to best inform consumers without scaring them. These issues are pressing, because hundreds of products that use nano-sized materials are already on the market.

So far, the cautionary measures are mostly voluntary. While NIOSH issued a recommended workplace exposure limit for carbon nanotubes last year, it’s a suggestion, not an edict. Some states are taking stronger steps, and an alphabet soup of federal agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), are looking hard at everything from athletic clothing impregnated with anti-bacterial nanosilver to cancer drugs that use nano-sized gold particles.

Godwin praised some of the EPA’s work, especially involving carbon nanotubes. The tiny carbon cylinders are prized because of a host of useful qualities, including the ability to conduct electricity. But their needle-like characteristics have drawn comparisons to asbestos because of evidence that they can lodge in the lungs and cause potentially harmful inflammation.  What the EPA isn’t doing well, Godwin said, is keeping the public apprised of what it’s doing.  "The level of transparency in terms of how that translates...is not what it could be," she said.

In other areas, such as developing ways to study these materials, there has been real progress. There’s also an emerging trend of new matrices for assessing the immediate risk of a nanomaterial, whether it’s to a graduate student working in a laboratory, a factory worker or a consumer. These frameworks are being designed to simplify the long, arduous process of figuring out what’s safe or dangerous and distilling it into a traffic light system, a wall poster, or other easy-to-understand format.

But a better grasp of danger isn’t helpful if the red flags are ignored, Schulte said. That’s where his concerns come in about whether manufacturers are taking the advice of toxicologists.

"We will come a long way to saying 'Yes, this is responsible development,'" Schulte said. "Without assessing compliance, we are shooting in the dark."

The group is scheduled to gather for the 6th NanOEH Symposium in Japan in 2013. What will the word cloud look like then?

Many on the panel said they thought there would be more to be excited about. International collaborations are gaining traction, and more sophisticated toxicological studies are being performed in labs around the world. A key element for future success, according to several members of the panel, is communication - between governments, with industry and with the public.

"I think it’s the social risks, not the technological risks, that imperil the development of nanotechnology," Harthorn said.

Source: New Haven Independent (with minor editorial changes)
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