ETC nanotech policy would ban most processed food
Last Thursday I spoke at a Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition conference on nanotech, at which Jim Thomas of the ETC Group also spoke. While we agree that nanoparticles need better testing and regulation, one of the ETC handouts, A Tiny Primer on Nano-scale Technologies, illustrates the risks of making policy recommendations that aren’t quite fully developed. Here the recommendation: “ETC Group has called for a moratorium on nanotech research and new commercial products until such time as laboratory protocols and regulatory regimes are in place that take into account the special characteristics of these materials, and until they are shown to be safe. In the meantime, all food, feed and beverage products, sunscreens and cosmetics that incorporate manufactured nanoparticles should be removed from shelves.” But what is their definition of nanoparticles? “…chemical elements or compounds less than 100 nm in size”. Seems to me that actually doing this would mostly empty the grocery stores including everything with manmade vitamins, colorings, flavorings, or preservatives…leaving the organic produce — and depending on how that’s been washed and packed, maybe that would be gone as well.–CP
June 21st, 2005 at 8:35 PM
Christine,
Lets not poke fun at people for being concerned about safety. Maybe we should try and help everyone find what the most important risks are and how we can handle them.
Take sunscreens for example, its possible to use TiO2 nano-particles that are transparent to visible light but block UV light. Sounds just right for a sunscreen, doesn’t it? But, aren’t TiO2 nano-particles also used in self-cleaning windows? In these windows when sunlight falls on the windows the surface of the TiO2 nano-particle you generate peroxides that dissolve away the grit on the windows. Now, I don’t know about you, but I sure as hell don’t want some kinds of TiO2 nano-particles sitting inside of my skin cells.
Did you notice that I said “some kinds if TiO2 nano-particles”. The way that TiO2 can generate peroxides when exposed to sunlight depends on a lot:
the crystalline structure (anatase or rutile),
the presents of water,
the total amount of surface area (a micro gram of 100 nm TiO2 is different than an equal amount of 2 nm TiO2 ),
a surface treatment with some inorganic molecules can interfere with the reaction,
and probably several other things can make a difference.
(Also you have to factor in, that how the nano-particles are dispersed in the lotion potentially changes the nano-particles ability to cross the cell wall.)
As a first suggestion, let me purpose when manufacturers of inorganic particles reduce the the size of their particles by a factor of ~10 the must rerun a set of tests that study the medical and ecological effects of the smaller particles. In other words when I get TiO2 from DuPont I want the MSDS (material data safety sheet) for ~30 nm TiO2 to be based on studies of ~30 nm TiO2 not studies of ~300 nm TiO2. Is that too much to ask?
June 22nd, 2005 at 7:24 PM
Hi Jim — I’m not competent to judge your specific proposal above, but agree that we do need some kind of rules regarding when safety tests on a material need to be re-done based on new particle size. About your first sentence: I wasn’t poking fun at ETC for being concerned about safety, but for their sloppy public policy recommendation in this case. We all have a responsibility to be careful on these important issues. Thanks for taking the time to comment. –CP
June 23rd, 2005 at 10:07 PM
“About your first sentence: I wasn’t poking fun at ETC for being concerned about safety, but for their sloppy public policy recommendation in this case. We all have a responsibility to be careful on these important issues. Thanks for taking the time to comment. –CP”
Christine,
I guess that I have a different take on safety concerns than most people, you see I work at a chemical company and we try very hard to encourage everyone to be concerned about safety. And when you do that, you have to spend a lot of time listening to peoples concerns with an open mind. And one cardinal rule is never make fun of anyone’s safety concerns (especially if you think that they are wrong to be so concerned). We get many suggestions on how to improve safety that are wrong headed (I have made a few myself). Ideally we analyze the danger and think through how the suggestion to improve safety would actually work. Most of the time the initial proposal to improve safety is modified or abandoned before it is implemented. But every one at the plant knows we all take safety seriously and continually strive to make the workplace and our products safer.
I agree with you that the ETC proposal is too broad and would have many unintended consequences but, we should try to work with them (and industry groups) to prioritize the dangers associated with nano-particles. First on my list is to make sure the information on the MSDS (Material Data Safety Sheet) that accompanies every raw material is based on the best science available. And I know for a fact that many of companies that sell nano-particles base their MSDS not on experiments done on the nano-particles of the substance but on tests of larger (conventional) particles of the same substance. I don’t ever want to be in the position were someone I work with has become sick because I brought in and used a raw material who’s danger we did not understand. (We can work with very dangerous materials but know what the danger is, and accurate MSDS’s are our first line of protection,)
June 23rd, 2005 at 10:12 PM
opps
that should have been:
We can work with very dangerous materials if we know what the danger is, and accurate MSDS’s are our first line of protection,
June 24th, 2005 at 8:59 AM
Useful comments, Jim, thanks. And I believe you are correct about the MSDS being based on larger particles in most cases (or all cases, for all I know). Fortunately, quite a few standards organizations are taking this issue seriously now, and I expect to see progress eventually. These things take time, evidently. –CP
June 30th, 2005 at 12:18 AM
I think Jim’s outline of the discussion is a good one. As nanoparticles enter the marketplace, we do not know what effects they will have on people. Ironically, we actually hope that the effective, commercializable properties of materials will change as the size dimensions get smaller. We can expect the health effects might change as well. We also cannot be certain that a material that we considered safe previously, because it is not in use in large volumes, might not have new health effects as we begin to use it in larger volumes, because of some new benefit found at the nanoscale. Many allergies appear in people only after long periods of exposure. I recall a liquid polymer with several additives that was introduced into the prototyping industry that had no effects for a couple of years and then, suddenly, some percentage of people working with it developed skin rashes. People working in nanotechnology should begin every day with a thought about safety procedures. New material data safety sheets should be different, according to particle size, as Jim suggests, and probably need to be verified by some standards body, like NIST.
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