Ground zero for nano controversy: Berkeley, of course
From Michael Toffel in the Berkeley Daily Planet:
“…I asked the City of Berkeley’s Community Environmental Advisory Commission (CEAC), of which I am a member, to consider a draft motion calling for the City Council to ask a similar set of questions. This motion simply asks LBL to: 1. Publicly disclose how they are identifying the risks to community health and the environment associated with their new nanotechnology activities. 2. How they are using external experts (of their own choosing) to validate this process. 3. What measures they are taking to ensure these risks are being managed properly. 4. How they will keep updated on this evolving science. 5. How they will inform the public about all this…
“First, perhaps the lab is still figuring out what policies and procedures it will implement to safeguard community health and the environment. This is plausible given so little is actually known about these concerns and the utter lack of regulations and industry standards. But shouldn’t the Lab be forthright about this? The Lab could publicly acknowledge what it does and does not know, and only permit research to be conducted where they are quite sure about the potential impacts and the appropriate protective measures to take.”
About this last sentence: it sounds plausible at first, until one remembers that research, by its very nature, explores the unknown. There is no way to be quite sure about the potential impacts, or to know for certain what protective measures to take.—Christine
November 30th, 2005 at 5:08 PM
Just like with the discovery of nuclear power; power plant meltdowns and raditaion hazards have become accepted in society as a tragic even but it will not stop the research of neclear science. So in regards to Nanotechnology yes their are great risks of failure which could possibly be very hazardous to the environment or to the people involved in the research but should we stop the research because of possible risks. No i do not think that the research should be revieled because of the potential risk of investors reducing funds to this research. If thier research did become hazardous dont you think that the researchers would then reviel it to the public but until then it should be kept a secret for fear of fund reduction or the stealing of research by other organizations of counties. You cannot make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. Their is always going to be risks in new technology but should that dissuade us from following the path of discover?
December 1st, 2005 at 9:47 AM
About this last sentence: it sounds plausible at first, until one remembers that research, by its very nature, explores the unknown. There is no way to be quite sure about the potential impacts, or to know for certain what protective measures to take.
Your mileage may vary, Christine; I was unenthusiastic after the first sentence, and when I backtracked to read the entire article, I was even less so. I actually began to write, “I was unimpressed,” but I realized that’s not true after reading the whole article. I am impressed, because Mr. Toffel has written a fairly subtle piece, hitting a lot of notes that lead to fear, uncertainty, and doubt about the new technologies.
The part you quoted reminded me of nothing so much as the European Union’s “REACH” regulations on its chemical industry, which adhere to a similar line: chemicals are effectively assumed guilty until proven innocent. To an uninformed observer, that sounds great, until one begins to consider the scope and costs of implementation; they will be staggering, and their effects will go far beyond the European Union. But because they sound reasonable to the uninformed observer, they are extremely difficult to argue against without sounding like an anti-environmental lunatic.
Moreover, in the full article, Mr. Toffel makes expert use of the paralepsis: No, he doesn’t want to accuse them of being engaged in a conspiracy… he just wants to point out that they won’t answer any of his asserted-to-be-reasonable questions. It is extremely difficult to articulate a middle position between “prove that your research is harmless before you do your research,” (which is what Mr. Toffel is leading to) and “we don’t care what the consequences are; full speed ahead!” It is easy to say that a middle position needs to be taken, but difficult to articulate what that position is– you’ll notice I’m not doing so, either. And as you say, research implies exploration of the unknown. It is, to say the elast, difficult to specify the risks of the unknown.
And when I read paralepses on the order of, “I don’t want to accuse them of being engaged in a conspiracy…. but they won’t answer my questions!” I begin to suspect that Mr. Toffel knows exactly what sort of situation he is creating. They are questions with no good answers. An answer of, “These are the risks” invites either, “But what about this and this and this and this?” or “Oh, no! We can’t do that! Too risky!” A dignified silence or refusal generates the paranoia-baiting commentary from the side about lack of transparency.
I took a similar position a few weeks ago about bio-ethics: it seems impossible to me to specify in advance all fo the ethical ramifications of research that has not yet been done, and technologies that do not yet exist. I left that one with the thought that the best we can do is tighten the loop between development and awareness, and the question of how best to do that.
I still don’t have a good answer to that question, either.
December 2nd, 2005 at 6:35 PM
Annother clean example of the paranoid environmental left minority looking for another avenue to assert their desire for absolute control over the rest of us.
The hard reality here is that life has many risks that we accept without much thought, like driving 70 mph on a busy freeway. The more adventurous of us jump out of perfectly good ariplanes, off cliffs and high buildings with a parachute …
So it is with research into unknown areas. We accept risk to get something we want, there is no other way.
The point here is that this clamorous uninformed minority has no business dictating to the rest of us what risks we should be allowed to take and which ones we can’t!
Certainly responsible researchers are as concerned about risks as anyone else and will do their work with a watchfull eye on any dangers their products may have; it’s good business to do so.
December 4th, 2005 at 9:47 PM
I do not know if this is the right section, but I am aware of a reported medical/health use of nanoparticles that dates back 125 years. Colloidal silver was developed in the 1880s, developed a following in the 1890s, was castigated in the 2010s despite its successful use in treating fulminating infections during WWI, and had passed into temporary oblivion by 1930. It would appear from published accounts that the popularity of colloidal during the last decade of the 19th century led led to a proliferation of colloidal silver manufacturers during the first decade of the 20th century, many of which did not actually know how to keep their product stable against nanoparticle aggregation during storage, which may be the reason for the many claims of lack of efficacy that emerged in the 1910s and 1920s. Although argyria (silver-mediated gray staining of skin) was reported, it appeared to be a cosmetic problem, not a health problem. One man was reported to have consumed one bottle of colloidal silver per day for 30 years, only to die of old age with gunmetal gray skin. I hypothesize that this argyria effect, which is not universally observed, is possibly due to contamination of the silver colloid with silver salts (most likely silver oxide and chloride), which can be prevented with modern technological improvements (although I doubt that all current manufacturers employ such quality control processes). I have personally consumed colloidal silver (100% metallic, 99.999% pure, in 2-5 micron particle size) in 2 mg doses without any adverse effect on GI function, urine pH, cognitive state or sleep. However, there was significant reduction in pain and swelling from a dental infection, which perfectly tracked an ABAB protocol with a delay of a few hours. Some current manufacturers are now claiming sub-micron particle sizes, which increases silver surface area dramatically. However, the only adverse health effects that I have received have been kidney function problems, which are known to be associated with the toxicity of silver salts to the kidney, and which occurred with one particular brand at doses less than 1% of those used by other individuals under known oxidative stress with multiple known opportunistic infections without any degree of kidney dysfunction. Since this suggests that the health risk observed has nothing to do with nanoparticles per se (soluble salts cause the same impairment of kidney function), it suggests that in vivo nanoparticle exposure by colloidal suspension is not necessarily toxic at all. This conclusion is also consistent with century old reports of ineffectiveness, not adverse health effects, of turn-of-the-century silver products.
December 7th, 2005 at 11:46 PM
Fawkes, are you a time-traveller? And aren’t you like, screwing with time-lines and stuff by telling us details from the next decade?