Blogs

On April 27, 2010, ILO published a booklet entitled “Emerging Risks and New Patterns of Prevention in a Changing World of Work,” which summarizes new occupational safety and health issues, including those related to technical innovations such as nanotechnology. The booklet states: There is a big knowledge gap between advances in the application of nanotechnology and its impact on health. Due to the extensive and highly diversified use of nanomaterials in industry, the number of...

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) posted on May 5, 2010, two reports concerning nanomaterials:...

On May 4, 2010, the European Parliament (EP) Committee on the Environment, Public Health, and Food Safety voted on draft legislation regarding “novel foods,” which are defined as those that have not been consumed to a significant degree in the European Union (EU) before May 1997. Under the legislation, foods produced by nanotechnology processes would be required to undergo risk assessment before being approved for use, and approved products would be subject to labeling...

On April 29, 2010, during the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Pesticide Program Dialogue Committee (PPDC) meeting, William Jordan, Senior Policy Advisor, Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP), presented slides regarding nanotechnology and pesticides. Jordan briefly described how OPP is defining nanoscale materials and how the technology is being applied to the field of pesticides. His presentation described OPP’s recent consultation with EPA’s Scientific...

MATTER and the Economic and Social Research Council Centre for Business, Relationships, Sustainability, and Society at Cardiff University will hold a joint conference entitled “Corporate Responsibility and Emerging Technologies: How Nanotechnologies Are Shaping the CSR Agenda” on June 4, 2010, in London. The free conference is intended to focus on the social and ethical dilemmas involved in the use of emerging technologies. The conference is open to all companies and stakeholders who...

On April 22, 2010, the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) announced that, on May 5, 2010, the University of California at San Francisco’s (UCSF) Program on Reproductive Health will hear comments from an expert panel and the public on a draft UCSF document entitled “A Nanotechnology Policy Framework: Policy Recommendations for Addressing Potential Health Risks from Nanomaterials in California.” The draft document includes a number of recommendations for...

On April 15, 2010, Senator Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) released the text of the Safe Chemicals Act of 2010 (S.3209), which is intended to address the “core failings” of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Also on April 15, 2010, Representatives Bobby Rush (D-IL), Chair of the Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection, and Henry Waxman (D-CA), Chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee, released a discussion draft of their TSCA reform legislation, the Toxics Chemicals...

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) announced that laboratory studies, reported in a paper posted online by the journal Nature Nanotechnology on April 4, 2010, discovered that carbon nanotubes were biodegraded by an enzyme found in white blood cells, neutrophils.  According to NIOSH, the researchers demonstrated that, unlike carbon nanotubes that were not biodegraded in this way, the biodegraded nanotubes did not cause inflammation in the lungs of mice.  NIOSH...

In a February 15, 2010, article entitled “ZnO Particulate Matter Requires Cell Contact for Toxicity in Human Colon Cancer Cells,” researchers report their results of a comparison of the toxicity of two commercial types of zinc oxide (ZnO) to colon cells. According to the researchers, the nano-sized ZnO was more cytotoxic than micrometer-sized ZnO. The researchers state: “Unintended exposure to nano-sized zinc oxide from children accidentally eating sunscreen products is a typical public...

On March 30, 2010, Michael Bellot, Chief of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Chemical Risk and Reporting Enforcement Branch, of the Office of Civil Enforcement, Waste and Chemical Enforcement Division, spoke at the Global Chemical Regulations Conference last week. Bellot described manufacturers of nanoscale materials as a “target-rich environment,” and stated that two-thirds of EPA’s 2009 chemical enforcement activity focused on nanoscale materials manufacturers. EPA did...