I have never seen any evidence linking pollution
to Nano-Tech at all. I think you are correct.
I was just curious if anyone looked at the authors
background.
Lisa
--- STEVEN BISSELL <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Saw the attached article. Is there any evidence that
> Nano Tech is an
> environmental hazard? It seems that some
> 'Environmental' organizations have
> taken an anti-science stand on everything. I smell a
> strong Luddite
> influence here.
>
> Steven
>
> NANOTECH SHOWDOWN
>
> By Tim Montague
>
> Just in time for summer, a group of eight
> environmental and public
> interest groups have petitioned the U.S. Food and
> Drug Administration
> (FDA) to recall nanotech sunscreens from supermarket
> shelves. This
> will force FDA to finally decide whether nano
> particles are something
> radically new or not.
>
> Nano particles are named for their small size (a
> nanometer is a
> billionth of a meter), and nano particles are
> smaller than anything
> humans have ever put into commercial products
> before. Their tiny size
> changes their characteristics completely. If they
> didn't represent
> something new, they wouldn't have the commercial
> world excited. At
> present something like a goldrush mentality
> surrounds nanotech.
>
> Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and the
> International Center for
> Technology Assessment on May 17 demanded of FDA
> "that nanoparticles be
> treated as new substances; nanomaterials be
> subjected to nano-specific
> paradigms of health and safety testing; and that
> nanomaterial products
> be labeled to delineate all nanoparticle
> ingredients." In other words,
> they are asking the FDA to wake up to the consensus
> of respected
> scientific bodies like the British Royal Society who
> concluded in
> their 2004 report that nano particles are different
> from anything
> humans have ever created before and that we need to
> take a
> precautionary approach.
>
> The petition to FDA says, "Engineered nanoparticles
> have fundamentally
> different properties from their bulk material
> counterparts --
> properties that also create unique human health and
> environmental
> risks -- which necessitate new health and safety
> testing paradigms."
> And this is confirmed by scientists like Gunter
> Oberdorster who has
> written text books on the subject and a recent
> review of
> 'nanotoxicology'. Until now, FDA (like U.S.
> Environmental Protection
> Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health
> Administration) have
> remained oblivious to all nanotech health risks.
> Their position is
> that carbon is carbon regardless of the size of its
> particles, zinc is
> zinc, and titanium is titanium. Size does not
> matter, says FDA.
>
> But every physicist knows that size matters a great
> deal. The smaller
> an object is, the larger its surface is in relation
> to its volume.
> Thus nano particles have an enormous surface to
> volume ratio, which
> renders them biologically active. Oberdorster says,
> "This increased
> biologic activity can be either positive and
> desirable (e.g.,
> antioxidant activity, carrier capacity for
> therapeutics, penetration
> of cellular barriers for drug delivery) or negative
> and undesirable
> (e.g., toxicity, induction of oxidative stress or of
> cellular
> dysfunction), or a mix of both."
>
> Now public interest organizations are asking the FDA
> to "Declare all
> currently available sunscreen drug products
> containing engineered
> nanoparticles of zinc oxide and titanium dioxide as
> an imminent hazard
> to public health." The petition (2.8 MB) and a
> related report (4
> MB) by Friends of the Earth (FOE) expose the dark
> underbelly of the
> health and beauty industry that has joined the
> nanotech gold rush
> without much thought for the short or long term
> consequences to nature
> or human health. But how could they? The structure
> of the modern
> corporation doesn't allow for ethical perspectives
> or precautionary
> action if they might significantly limit the bottom
> line.
>
> Next time you (or your kids) want to slather up with
> your favorite
> sunblock, remember that the active ingredient in the
> sunscreen --
> typically zinc oxide and/or titanium dioxide --
> could very well be a
> nanomaterial. There are now hundreds of sunscreens,
> moisturizers,
> cosmetics and other personal care products
> containing sub-microscopic
> materials that we simply don't understand. And
> because the FDA doesn't
> require labeling, consumers are left in the dark --
> a vast experiment
> with only one winner, and that isn't you or me.
>
> We aren't talking about the same zinc oxide that you
> knew as a youth
> on lifeguard's noses. Nanoscale engineered materials
> (smaller than 100
> nanometers in diameter -- iron, aluminum, zinc,
> carbon, and many
> others) are measured in billionths of a meter. A
> human hair is 80,000
> nanometers wide. A strand of DNA is 3.5 nm across.
> The nanoworld is
> quite a different place -- a world where particles
> can pass directly
> from the environment into your bloodstream, tissues,
> cells and
> organelles. The nano revolution has burst upon us
> for just that reason
> -- nanomaterials take on new and unique properties
> that make them
> attractive as drug delivery vehicles, chemical
> sponges and nano-robot
> ("nanobot") building blocks.
>
> There are three typical ways in which nanomaterials
> get into our
> bodies -- we breath them, ingest them or absorb them
> through our skin.
> And despite the evidence that nanomaterials cause
> lung, liver and
> brain damage in animals, our Food and Drug
> Administration (FDA) is
> treating nanomaterials like their standard or bulk
> sized counterparts
> of yesteryear.
>
> In March, 2006, Jennifer Sass of the Natural
> Resources Defense Council
> (NRDC) summarized the state of regulatory affairs
> for nanotechnology
> thus: "The Toxic Substances Control Act is the most
> obvious law for
> regulating nanomaterials. But the law does not
> require manufacturers
> to provide safety data before registering a
> chemical, instead placing
> the burden on the government to demonstrate that a
> substance is
> harmful. If the government does not follow up on
> potential risks with
> a new product application within several months, the
> company can
> proceed to sell its product. Other laws on the books
> also are
> inadequate. The Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act [giving
> FDA regulatory
> power] includes only feeble safeguards for
> cosmetics, which already
> promise to be a major use of nanomaterials.
> Likewise, the poorly
> enforced Occupational Safety and Health Act fails to
> address nano-
> specific worker protections."
>
> As we reported in Rachel's #816, the British Royal
> Society
> (approximately the equivalent of our National
> Academy of Sciences)
>
=== message truncated ===
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