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Call from China for joint nanotoxicology testing effort
18/11/2009
In a correspondance article published last month in Nature, researchers Shuping Bi et al. from Nanjing University in China have called for relevant international organisations to join forces to study nanotechnology safety and toxicity issues.
This call comes in response to the publication of a news story in Nature entitled "Nanoparticle safety in doubt" which discusses the recent paper by Song et al., a study which claimed to establish a concrete link between exposure to nanoparticles in adhesive paint and development of severe pulmonary fibrosis in a group of young female Chinese factory workers and sparked debate among nanotoxicology experts over its validity.
Click here to read Safenano’s feature article which provides a breakdown of this study.
In response, researchers Bi et al. would like to stress that China has been paying close attention to research into and documentation of the risks of working with nanomaterials.
'As in most Western countries, industrial use of nanoscale products has been proliferating in China over the past decade. These are widely used in weaving, dyeing, cosmetics and medicine, for example, as well as in waste-water treatments,' the authors comment. 'The need to develop international standard-analysis protocols to assess nanoparticle toxicities is therefore becoming increasingly urgent.'
According to Bi et al., China is currently taking measures to address the issues. These have included a series of national conferences and symposia on the safety of nanomaterials such as the 243rd Xiangshan Conference in 2004. Research projects such as the '973 Programme' of Basic Research and Development have been initiated by the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology. Several important projects have also been funded by the National Natural Science Foundation.
A recently established Chinese journal, Asian Journal of Ecotoxicology, publishes primary research papers and reviews on nanoparticle safety and toxicity in almost every issue, Bi et al. highlight. There are regular updates on developments in the field and a scientific platform for data sharing and policy discussion (for example, see N. Wang et al. Asian J. Ecotoxicol. 2, 252–264; 2007).
'We urge the relevant international scientific organisations to join forces and work out a scheme for establishing high-speed tests that will sort out safety and toxicity issues for different industrial nanomaterials,’ Bi et al. stress. 'Such a collaborative venture would accelerate progress in this rapidly expanding field.'
Click here to access the correspondence article through Nature.
Source: Nature
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