Bryony Ross

Was the nano to blame? Further thoughts on chemicals used by workers who fell ill following occupational exposure to nanoparticles (amongst other things!)

bryony@safenano.org — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 13:22:00 GMT

Following the widely publicised release of Song et. al.'s study into lung disease in Chinese workers expoed to nanoparticles in the workplace (accessible here), there was of course much discussion within both the nano and wider community as to the paper's implications and its issues. SAFENANO published a special feature on the paper, outlining the paper's main findings and issues, and in association with Andrew Maynard of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, three fascinating blogs discssing various aspects of the paper and providing opinion from some of the world's most respected nanotechnologists on the matter were published. SAFENANO's attempts to help the wider science community form their own informed opinion on the paper's findings were well covered by the 'nano-specific' press, and as ever we hope that the materials we provided served a useful purpose! In amongst all of this this, i had some interesting correspondance with Alastair Robertson, an expert in occupational exposure to chemicals and dusts and previous Director of Consultancy Services for IOM. My original feature on the paper raised a question mark around the chemical 'ethylene dioxide', an ingredient reported to be in the coating paste preparation used by those workers who fell ill, and for which i struggled to find further information. Alastair provided me with the following additional information on this chemical, and some insightful comments on those chemicals used within the paste as a whole, which he has kindly allowed me to publish:

Ethylene dioxide is occasionally used in error to describe ethylene oxide but it also occasionally used as a synonym for 1,4 dioxane, a carcinogenic solvent. Diethylene oxide is more commonly used as a synonym. The link below gives useful toxicological information on 1,4 dioxane:

http://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/ntp/roc/eleventh/profiles/s080diox.pdf

The description of the process seems poor and it is difficult to be definitive. 1,4 dioxane but it is commonly found as a contaminant and is used in some paints. I would not expect much ethylene oxide from what was said about the paint although it could be present in trace amounts from the production process. Interestingly, some paints in the US are described as possibly containing traces of both ethylene oxide and dioxane. On a wider note, I also suspect that there would be very little chemical decomposition or smoke at the temperatures quoted (75 -100 C) but solvents, plasticizer, any monomers and other low boiling point additives may be volatilised. Chemical decomposition of the product is generally undesirable in a painting process as it wrecks both plastic and the finish. Smoke would cause stains.

Thanks to Alastair for providing this information.

Separating Nano- from -technology

bryony@safenano.org — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 10:35:00 GMT

So, it's the end of what's been a pretty full on week for the SAFENANO team, and i'm confused! Not really a suprise or a change from the norm i guess, but this time i thought i'd write it down and see if SAFENANO's readers can offer any help!...

To provide you with some context, here's the background to why my head's spinning...

This week, myself and Rob Aitken attended 1st Annual Symposium of the EU FP7 project ObservatoryNANO in Dusseldorf, within which we lead the Environment, Health and Safety work package. The meeting itself was open only to invited experts from across the wide range of ObservatoryNANO's 10 main technological themes, so there was plenty of room for at times heated debate amongst a group of scientists with such varied backgrounds and strong ideas - I was really looking forward to it .

This year, the general idea of the symposium was to provide some plenary sessions covering broad ranging aspects of nano (such as our EHS perspective, and tackling application development within industry), and the rest of the time be split into parallel workshops for discussion of major themes within the project. As one of our main deliverables within the EHS workpackage is to evaluate the (soon to be publically available) year 1 technology sector reports (a hefty task as there are currently over 50!!), myself and the other workpackage members from RIVM, EMPA and CEA split up and tried to gather opinion on the EHS aspects of as many of the workshops as possible.

Anyway, i'm getting sidetracked - enough about work tactics & back to why i'm confused...

As part of the symposium, members of our fellow workpackage on Ethics and Societal implications of nanotechnologies held a number of workshops to assist them in pulling together an 'Ethics Toolkit', which (to the best of my understanding) will aim to help provide those working within nanotechnologies with guidance on practising in an ethically sound manner. On the afternoon of the first day, i found myself settling into the Food, Health and the Environment Ethics workshop - not quite sure what to expect.

The session started with an introduction from the session's mediator, who then started to outline some ethical questions for the group to consider. As could be expected, the reception to these was a mixed one - some engaging with the questions, and others totally rejecting their value or relevance to the day's proceedings (at one point a hand was raised simply to comment that the whole thing was all utterly rediculous...like i say, strong opinions). It all made for good listening.

However, as time went on and we'd waded through the ins and outs of general ethical soundness, the oxymoron of green nanotechnology and bizarelley, whether or not it was fair to implant chips in teachers' brains to monitor whether or not they were having 'inappropriate' thoughts during school hours (!), the crux of the whole nano-ethics debate for me crystallised, and then remained unanswered: is it fair to consider the ethics of nanotechnology separately from the techology or application which it is enables?

So, here are the main arguments i've been thinking about:

1. Without the specific context/application of use by which the nano and application/technology are married, there would be no real ethical issue to consider (as there would be no exposure to and thus implications for animal or environmental wellbeing) - so why bother to consider nano-ethics separately? i.e. all we'd be doing is regurgitating the same ethical questions we've already thrashed out for say biotech to a greater extent...

2. To only consider the nanotech and the technology/application it supports together is also short-sighted, as although they are married by the context/application in which they are used, and thus you could possibly combine the ethical questions posed by each into one larger set of questions, the two continue to evolve and progress separately of each other and this changing nature has to be taken into account in some way.

3. Am i just thinking waaay to hard about this on a week where i've had very little sleep?!

Really, the more i think about this the more confused i get (and the happer it get I'm in EHS not ethics!). I'm certain there are flaws in even these basic arguments, and many others i haven't even thought of yet but despite putting a considerable amount of thought into it, i still can't see a clear way forward...

So, given that i'm not making any progress - what do you think?

Can nano- be separated from -technology, or are the two stuck together whether we'd like them to be or not? Your thoughts please!

NanoTube – New resource for nano-education or nanotechnology's answer to 'You've been Framed'?

bryony@safenano.org — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 10:55:00 GMT

Over the weekend, I stumbled across Nano Tube, an online compendium of useful, funny and plain weird short films based around nanotechnology. It’s a competition being run by ACSnanonation, which invites entrants to capture what nano is, how its best visualised or where its heading in under 3 minutes, in exchange for the chance to win $500 cash.

As it turns out, I’m pretty late in the day to be catching on to the Nano Tube – it was actually launched January – this however left me with rich pickings to trawl through so i'm not too upset! Browsing the ‘most viewed’ category, the downside soon became apparent as I got sucked in and ended up losing a good couple of hours messing about on it (ah well, all for a good cause...or something!). So, by way of justifying the whole thing to myself I've pulled together some of the highlights of the show below:

If you're looking for something slick…With pretty decent animations for an amateur video comp, ‘An Introduction to Nanotechnology’ is pretty good. Unfortunately it’s in many ways akin to a video you’d see at school (very informative but a bit dry – sound familiar?) but gets a gold star nonetheless.

Slightly odd but strangely addictive (and actually pretty informative) is ‘Small can be big - a french cheesy perspective’. With a cheesey cheesey cheese theme, this short film attempting to explain how exactly nanoparticles have such a large surface area isn’t the most technical piece of cinematography and it does feature some pretty odd French accents, but is pretty entertaining and strangely addictive once you fix onto those ever shrinking blocks of cheese…

Funny... 'The Nano Song'. Plain genius, it does exactly as it says on the tin – ‘Everything you need to know about the wonders of nanotechnology... as a musical... with puppets...’ Ok, so maybe it doesn’t tell you everything you need to know, but it’s a great one for introducing kids to the concept, and any video that manages to cross Sesame Street with science (it features its very own purple Oscar the Grouch-esque character!) has to be compulsory viewing!

Plain Strange... 'The room at the bottom' Following a scientist's fantastical journey into a realm of nanoscale dimensions, the grandaunt students behind this entry attempts to explore popular fact and fiction of nanotechnology in the style of "Alice in Wonderland." Featuring a mad scientist exploring a Transmission Electron Microscope powered nanoworld (which he enters with the aid of some dry ice, bubbling test tubes in various colours and lots of goo - naturally), before being attacked by a beautiful lady who turns into a cluster of evil nanoparticles and eventually saved by his colleague with a big jar of ‘nano-ß-gone’; this video is pretty strange through and through, but scores 10/10 for imagination!

And Finally… in the last couple of days a late entry has appeared from none other than SAFENANO’s friend Nanoman (as in Andrew and Alex Maynard’s ‘The Adventures of Nanoman’) …now, without trying to introduce bias to your vote in any way (would I ever!), its gotta be worth a tick from the nanoEHS community! Click here to vote…

So there you are – some useful, some funny and some plain weird, but all in all a pretty decent effort from ACS to encourage public engagement, and good distraction to accompany your morning coffee break!

Think you could do better? The competition is open for submissions until the 15th March – click here for more info on how to get involved.

'NOT Nano' the 'New Nano'?

bryony@safenano.org — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 12:51:00 GMT

In my usual daily trawlings of the web for newsworthy items to add to SAFENANO.org, I get through plenty of news that isn’t really relevant to our initiative, and occasionally come across some totally weird and wonderful (but in a geeky-kinda way great) stuff. Usually I don’t have time to write about any of this, and really, why would you want to know about it anyway - its my job to spend half my life combing through this information so you the readers don’t have to!

However, one news item did catch my attention today, and really for all the wrong reasons. ‘New in North America: Sanitized® Silver for All Textiles without a Binder’ the headline says…. “So what?” you’re probably thinking – given the attention that silver has received in the nanotechnology world over the last 2 years anyone that follows the nano-scene won’t be amazed by the appearance of yet another silver based product on the market. Nor will they be blown away by its application in protecting textiles (albeit delicate and stretchable ones this time) against odour and bacteria.

However, the thing that caught my eye about this was past the science bit and the list of benefits to be gained from using Sanitized® Silver in protecting your textiles – it was a totally new section, which began “Sanitized® Silver is NOT Nanotechnology” – just like that, in bold, and backed up by an entire paragraph quoting the company's Business Development Manager distancing the company from nanotechnologies & boasting that following characterisation, the product was most definitely not and would never be nanotechnology-related.

I know we’ve seen this kind of attitude from some industry players before - take the case of Benny the Bear highlighted by Andrew Maynard last year – but actually when I consider it that was different, in so much as when the company that marketed Benny stopped associating themselves with Nano Silver, they did so quietly. Sanitized® Silver on the other hand has incorporated it into its main marketing message – something which in a way seems far more sinister, and shows a complete lack of awareness for the ongoing strugglefor public acceptance of companies working to develop responsible & safe ways to make use of the numerous benefits nanotechnology can bring.

Whilst I’m in no better a position than the next scientist on the block to predict where the nano-silver saga will end in terms of acceptance of or rejection by the major stakeholder groups involved; to me this froms a pertinent reminder that those working in science communication really have a duty to ensure developments in toxicological research are put across in a manner which avoids building on the pre-existing fears of stakeholder groups who will ultimately determine how a technology is received e.g. the general public. In this way, maybe industry won’t feel the need to pitch its products from such an openly anti-nano angle.

Scotman's 'Nanosilver fad' sparks lively discussion

bryony@safenano.org — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 17:07:00 GMT

An article on the potential health risks of nanosilver published in 'The Scotsman' newspaper has prompted fresh debate in this controversial area.

The article, published in Sunday's issue of The Scotsman, attempts to examine exactly how safe use of as-yet unregulated colloidal nanosilver products really is, features commentary from all sides of the debate. Expert scientific commentary is from Professor Vicki Stone (SAFENANO’s Director of Toxicology & Napier University) and Professor Ken Donaldson (SnIRC & Edinburgh University), and opinion on the merits or otherwise of colloidal silver from a UK-based seller and long term users is also featured.

Already the article has sparked some lively debate on the Scotsman online – but I'm curious as to what SAFENANO's readers think - is the article is a fair representation of the current state of play, does taking nanosilver in this manner pose a risk to health or are the concerns completely unfounded - the floor is open!

ObservatoryNANO – responsible nanotechnology for socio-economic benefit

bryony@safenano.org — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 12:49:00 GMT

After spending a fair bit of time ‘hibernating’ at SAFENANO HQ (well, that’s how I wish it was!), this month sees the beginning of a fairly busy period for the team, and the start of a number of very important new projects in nano HSE. The first of these kicked off on Monday, with the preliminary meeting of the newly-formed FP7 action 'ObservatoryNANO' in London

ObservatoryNANO is a 4 year FP7 funded project featuring 10 partners from across Europe, the basic idea of which is to examine 10 key areas of nanotechnology development, and provide easily accessible information covering economic impact, technological advances, health & safety implications, regulations and standards both in the present time and with a horizon scanning focus.

SAFENANO/IOM have the task of leading the Health Safety aspect of the project. The task we have been set, namely to review the technological and economic reports produced by other partners and provide a comprehensive health and safety assessment of each area, is definitely going to be a challenge, but the project's outcome should be a resource that is invaluable to industry, academia and government alike. Following Monday's meeting, where the main aim was to meet everyone else, and begin ordering how to coordinate our actions with those of the people responsible for each of the 10 technical, scientific and economic reports. For the SAFENANO team, it was just great to finally start work on another of the FP7 projects everyone has worked so hard to be awarded. Following this, we’re now ready to meet with our workpackage partners RIVM, CEA and EMPA at the beginning of summer and get started on the work proper - SAFENANO will keep you updated on how we progress as the HSE aspects of the project develop.

In the meantime, there is already a website up and running to introduce users to the project - have a look at www.observatory-nano.eu for more information!

UK Nanoforum 2007

bryony@safenano.org — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 16:26:00 GMT

Today was the UK Nanoforum 2007 in Westminster, London. As part of SAFENANO’s new consultancy service provision launch, myself and Rob flew down to attend. The turnout was great, with around 400 delegates from over 20 countries round the world, and even before lunch we’d spoken to lots of people who were very interested in what SAFENANO had to offer.

The services branch of SAFENANO was finally made official in the last couple of weeks, and we’re now developing a full range of services to provide industry and academia with the tools to ensure that their nanotechnology provision is as safe as it can be. SAFENANO.org was updated in the last week to include a brief introduction to our services, which are split into 5 main areas – toxicology/ecotox lab services, Occupational Health, Occupational Hygiene, Training and Toxicology Review.

In the morning, there was a series of workshops and keynote speeches from eminent names covering UK nano capabilities, and these proved to be very interesting. I was particularly taken with the Team AVNP project Paul Reip of QinetiQ discussed (AVNP stands for Anti Viral Nanoparticles). The project, which has been running for almost its full 2 year span, has successfully produced particles that are both anti-viral (lethal to H5N1 bird flu virus, MRSA52 and E.Coli amongst others) anti-microbial and anti-fungal. Although it will still be a while before particles like this are available as finished products (e.g. as a coating on a facemask filter) and protecting the frontline care staff it was originally designed for, it was great to see a real positive benefit being reaped from nanotech.

In the afternoon, Rob gave an elevator speech to attending delegates (all without powerpoint, I was impressed!). This was very well received, and the SAFENANO exhibition stand also received a lot of attention – even sporting a queue at one point in the afternoon!

All in all, I think the day was invaluable to SAFENANO - we not only received a good number of new membership requests, but we made some new business contacts that I think could be valuable in the future, and even managed to take a few pictures during the event. I'm heading off today for a much anticipated holiday, so SAFENANO may not be quite as up to date as usual over the next 10 days, but when i come back ill update the site fully, and post the photos :)

A welcome break for the bewildered

bryony@safenano.org — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 15:17:00 GMT

I am still really quite new to the nanotechnology health and safety area, but like many people who follow its developments, recent efforts reported addressing this area have in my eyes seemed at times so fragmented and overlapping that the cynical side of my personality was left wondering how we even got this far! The field seems be becoming an increasingly crowded area to work in, and must be bewildering to newcomers (I was confused!). Two articles in the October 15th edition of Chemical and Engineering News therefore came as a welcome respite to the usually confusing releases of recent times.

The online edition of the magazine addresses in two articles the state of environmental, health, and safety research of engineered nanoparticles, and the challenges risk-based nanotech research faces in America. The articles, written by Susan R Morrisey, provide a brief and easily understood overview of recent efforts being made in America by both Government and NGOs to address these issues, and highlight the questions being asked about exactly how useful the federal strategy will end up being as it seemingly lags begind the NGOs (several of whom are imminently to release of strategic plans for this area).

The first, ‘Setting Priorities for Nanotech’ discusses the efforts made thus far by the National Nanotechnology Initiative’s (NNI) Nanotechnology Environmental and Health Implications (NEHI) working group. It summarises the steps that lead to the publication of NEHI’s plan for Prioritization of EH&S research needs for Nanotechnology, and the mixed reception that this brought from NGO’s across America (see SAFENANO’s coverage of the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies’ reaction to this release). It also covers the current position that the NEHI group are in, the problems they face in the immediate future, and includes reaction from E. Clayton Teague, Director of the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office.

The second article focuses on the challenges of Risk-Based Nanotech Research, and summarises the efforts being made by Rice University’s International Council on Nanotechnology (ICON) to address the need for a predictive model for assessing how nanoparticles interact with biological systems in the run down to ICON’s release of this report in the coming months.

Of course, the articles focus entirely on the USA, and are not by any means an all encompassing record of the efforts being made, past, present and future. However, they provide a good overview of the current lie of the land in the effort to promote nanotechnology health and safety - and reading them didn’t make my head hurt!

Follow the links to read 'Setting Priorities for Nanotech' or 'Challenges of Risk-Based Nanotech Research'

Nice Conference, shame about the plane.

bryony@safenano.org — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 13:59:00 GMT

Today myself and Rob Aitken are at the NanoCentral / CEMMNT Nanomaterials Networking event in Loughborough. We flew down last night, and despite a cancelled flight, followed by a 'blissful' 4 hour delay in the Airport, and then a walk from the Hotel to the venue that was a little longer than anticipated (try taking your company’s marketing materials, your bag and your laptop for a 25 minute powerwalk!), we managed to get the SAFENANO stand up and running successfully.

The day was unique in that it really had an emphasis on cross disciplinnary co-ordination and networking, as such every delegate present attended all 4 broadly themed presentation sessions of the day, in which companies and initiatives represented provided a potted guide to their current offering and future plans.

The four sessions were: Nanomaterial Synthesis and Supply, Nanomaterials Dispersion functionalization and formulation, Nanomaterials applications development and Nanomaterials Characterisation and HSE. To keep things running smoothly, Stephen Cash of NanoCentral facilitated the talks, ensuring people kept to their 5 minute time limits by asking the crowd to clap when he signalled with a red card, and Rob did a great job of encapsulating SAFENANO's offering of Information provision, Services, and Community into a neat presentation to the gathered delegates.

During the lunch and Networking session that followed we met a lot of new faces, all of whom are really interested in the initiative, and have made some interesting potential new alliances. So, despite our best laid travel plans turning into a veritable disaster, its been a successful day overall!

...here’s hoping we get home tonight with a little less of a struggle than our outward journey!!!

Engineered Nanoparticles in the Environment

bryony@safenano.org — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 14:08:00 GMT

This week, I was lucky enough to be invited to hear an impromptu talk from Joel A Pedersen of the Environmental Chemistry and Technology Program at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Dr Pedersen was in the UK to attend ‘Prion 2007’, and dropped by the IOM to give us a summary of his work on transformation of engineered nanoparticles in the environment, something I knew little about before his visit.

To start, we were given an introduction to the complex interfacial interactions to which nanoparticles are subject, including the Extended Derjaguin Landau Verney Overbeek (XDLVO) theory and interactions such as the Electrostatic Double Layer, Lifshitz van der Waals and Polar Interactions. In addition, Dr Pedersen gave an eloquent description of the confounding influence steric reactions, surface roughness and functionalization could bring, the effect each of these has on Nanoparticle behaviour, and the inherent difficulties these multiple simultaneous interactions present for making accurate quantitative predictions of nanoparticle behaviour in the environment.

He then moved on to focus on the actual lifecycle of nanoparticles, and changes in their surface that may occur during this lifecycle. Dr Pedersen described acquisition and biomodification of NP coatings, and gave laboratory-based and real-life examples of both. He then discussed chemical models for microbially mediated NP transformation, including oxidation, reduction and ligand –assisted dissolution of nanoparticles – the area his group are currently investigating. His laboratory had carried out an elegant experiment using an in vitro biomimetic oxidative assay which made use of lignolytic funghi. The group had applied this assay to polyethylene glycol (PEG) functionalised Quantum Dots, colloidal NPs that have undergone development as organic dyes and fluorescent markers in living cells amongst other applications. They found that that Quantum Dot transformation is possible within oxidative environments, and that Cadmium was released from within the core of the QDs they used.

Despite the huge complexity of the concepts Dr Pedersen was conveying (a lot to take on board if you’re as new to the topic as I am!), his talk and research was incredibly interesting. In addition, the results he has collected so far clearly have possible wide-ranging implications for the use of such Quantum Dots in living organisms given that substances which make up the core of QD’s are often intrinsically toxic in nature. It also reminded me of the enormity of the puzzle that scientists investigating nanotechnology are facing, and what a tiny proportion of this we have tackled so far.

Buckyballs and Asbestos - poor science or poor reporting?

bryony@safenano.org — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 14:36:00 GMT

In the last week, Cosmetics Design Europe ran an article that caused quite a stir in the nano-world. The article, entitled ‘Professor compares nanomaterials to asbestos’ began with “Nanomaterials used in cosmetics have been compared to the invisible airborne killer, asbestos, by a high-profile chemistry professor at the BA Festival of Science in York.” Immediately, the eye-catching nature of the story meant it spread across nano, cosmetic and consumer group news sites.

That, of course, was to be expected. However at the time, I felt a little reticent to report the story on SAFENANO, as I had a gut instinct that the ‘high profile chemistry Professor’ in question (Professor Ryan of Sheffield University) may have been reported out of context – spelling mistakes and serious slips in the way his comments on nano (or nono) science was reported on the web made me wonder how much was verbatim and how much was poor reporting in action. In addition, from comments made by Professor Ryan reported in another article, he appeared to hold an upbeat attitude to nanotechnologies – not what you would expect of someone proclaiming them to be a major health hazard. However, without having been at the talk myself, I had no way of telling whether Prof Ryan or the journalist reporting him was at fault.

A few days on, I’m pleased to see that the SAFENANO team were not the only ones to with reservations. Kristen Kulinowski, director of the International Council on Nanotechnology, and director of external affairs of the NSF Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology has published an article in her NanoRisk blog analysing and commenting on Professor Ryan’s remarks at the BA Festival of Science.

She makes a number of very good observations about how the story ‘fails to meet the mark of good science/science reporting’ – Having read it through, I can’t improve on what she wrote so have simply added it below:

1. Equating carbon nanotubes and buckyballs.

"During a talk on nanotechnology and the environment, Tony Ryan, director of the Polymer Centre at the University of Sheffield, compared carbon nonotubes, otherwise known as buckyballs, to the construction material."

Leaving aside the possible Freudian slip in the misspelling of nanotube, carbon nanotubes are not buckyballs. They both belong to a class of materials known as fullerenes and can be referred to as "carbon-based nanomaterials" but they are not the same thing. The buckyball is the soccer-ball-shaped molecule and the nanotube is its longer, tubular cousin.

2. Assuming idealized form of carbon nanotube.

"One of the potential dangers with carbon nanotubes is: are we creating a new asbestos? The asbestos response is based on the shape of the particle. Part of the issue is in the shape of the molecule and how they're introduced," said Ryan.

We've all seen images of carbon nanotubes that look like rigid little sticks. I've also seen plenty of images of nanotube spaghetti where the tubes, which have a natural affinity for one another, all clump together into a tangled mess. Unlike asbestos. It's actually very difficult to individualize a sample of carbon nanotubes into single particles.

3. Assuming same route of exposure for nanotubes as asbestos, i.e., inhalation of individual particles.

"It is asbestos fibres rather than asbestos itself that causes serious health problems because they can become airborne and lodge themselves in the skin or lungs."

While it is true that liquid suspensions of carbon nanotubes injected in the lungs of rodents have been shown to pose hazards to lung tissue, there is little to no evidence that carbon nanotubes can be aerosolized into an inhalable form.

4. Equating carbon nanotubes and buckyballs. (see also #1)

"Although there has been no conclusive evidence to suggest that the size of carbon nanotubes poses serious health risks, Ryan advised caution with regards to cosmetic applications. The professor said: 'I wouldn't put buckyballs anywhere near my face.'"

I suspect this was the reporter's fault and that Professor Ryan probably said "nanomaterials" or "carbon nanoparticles" or some other more general term. This illustrates a very common issue that arises in discussions of nano EHS: the lumping together of all nanomaterials into a single class and then transferring documented effects from one type of particle onto another or even all nanomaterials.

5. Getting an organization's name wrong.

"Despite widespread anxiety about the use of nanomaterials there are 22 sunscreens and 77 cosmetic products, on the market that have been developed using nanotechnology, according to the Project on Emerging Technology."

A minor point, perhaps, but the inventory is maintained by the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies.

I think Kulinowski’s observations on the original report are pretty spot on, and agree with them almost completely. My one minor concern would be her statement that “there is little evidence that carbon nanotubes can be aerosolized into an inhalable form”…I think at this stage it is pretty dangerous to assume that carbon nanotubes will not at any point during their current or future uses pose a threat to health via this route. However, this is purely an aside to what is a well reasoned examination of a story that has again highlighted the need for accurate and fair reporting of advances in nanotechnology risk research.

EU Nanotechnology Action Plan

bryony@safenano.org — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 16:03:00 GMT

I just finished reading through the Interim report on the EU Nanotechnology Action Plan. Having summarised its contents in a news article for the main SAFENANO website, I found myself confused by some of the shortcomings highlighted in the report.

Amongst the weaknesses listed as apparent in Europe, a 'lack of interdisciplinnary infrastructure for research' was noted. I find this hard to agree with when groups such as the Safety of Nanomaterials Interdisciplinary Research Centre (SnIRC), which has been active since 2005, are established and ready to coordinate research efforts. In addition, other groups such as ENTA and the NIA are actively working to bridge the gap between researchers and industrialists, and are in a good position to coordinate efforts to help increase private investment in research, and aid with further development of an interdisciplinnary infrastructure for nanotechnology. Maybe i'm missing something (it has been a pretty hectic day for me), but from my perspective there is definately coordination, and infrastructure has been developed...i suspect that the root of the issue will be found in a lack of funding to take these areas forward at a pace that matches the speed at which nano is taking off commercially rather than anything else...what are your views?

In addition, the report specified that activities should take place to develop a shared understanding of the responsibility of researchers within an ethical framework. Ok, so maybe there is no ethical framework as such yet, but I do think that we have an understanding of our responsibility as researchers, otherwise SAFENANO would never have been developed or funded!

IEEE Spectrum's Nanotech Review

bryony@safenano.org — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 15:20:00 GMT

Today the IEEE published an article about nanotechnology and its possible implications for health and the environment. 'Nano particles without macroproblems' by Barbara Karn and H. Scott Matthews introduces the field, its current climate, and its problems. It then discusses some of the more notable scientific developments in the nanotoxicology field over the last decade, and what has been done to address the issues that these have raised.

The authors definately promote the precautionary view of nanotechnology and its development, pushing the message 'the chance to act responsibly won't last forever', and reiterating the point that although there have been some moves made to tackle the issues, they are far from a fair match for the scale of the problem. They also highlight that responsibility for ensuring nanotechnologies do not jeapordise the future of our general health and the environment is a problem that should be taken on and addressed by industry as well as academia.

Overall, the piece makes for pretty light reading to a toxicologist, but is a good concise overview for anyone not specialist in the area - well done to the authors.

Bry

We know what we want...but what next??

bryony@safenano.org — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 13:42:00 GMT

Today, EHP online pre-published the findings of a US workshop looking at Hazard Assessment of Nanoparticles. The workshop, held at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in April 2006, brought together some of the nanotechnology heavyweights in the US and beyond to discuss what information is needed to understand the human health impact of engineered nanoparticles, and how this information would be best obtained.

The workshop was really a prelude to the burst of standardisation and regulation themed activity in both Europe and the US. Having been involved with both the development and implementation of SAFENANO, and the REFNANO workshop series conducted by SnIRC and SAFENANO earlier in 2007, it was pleasing to look through the results and conclusions of the EHP report and see that at least some of the demands raised have been met. For example, by developing SAFENANO, Recommendation 3 'Develop a Multi-Disciplinnary community of practice and information-sharing forum for researchers and all interested stakeholders' is now in place and avaliable through the our Community area.

REFNANO also further developed the recommendations put forward; in particular, recommendation 4 (Develop and make avaliable a set of reference nanoparticles for research laboratories to use as controls/benchmarks in their studies) and recommendation 5 'work towards quantitative risk assessment by selecting a set of 3-5 specific nanoparticles for full physicochemical characterization, in vitro and in vivo testing' were tackled.

Having been pleased to see almost complete concurrance between the US And EU's recommendations on a strategy to address nanotechnology hazard, and delighted to be actively involved in promoting areas of this, i couldn't help feel dissapointed that the US and the UK and EU clearly also have an ongoing common major problem - funding. This is old news really - we all know there is a lack of funding, but i do find myself wondering how long we will be attending these workshops, reporting the findings and calling for funding to further the development of robust testing and regulatory mechanisms to protect the health of workers and the general public, before any funding significant enough to implement these recommendations is allocated. After all, governments worldwide are more than happy to recognise Nano Health and Safety issues as a hugely important, recommend the formation of interdisciplinnary teams to tackle it and encourage sharing of information amongst parties involved...but so far, no government seems to be putting forward the cash to progress matters as quickly as everyone says is necessary.... Despite all this though, and as naiive as it seems, I am ever hopeful that this will change in the near future!

REFNANO's final report has recently been completed, and will be published via DEFRA soon - keep checking SAENANO.org for further details on this.

NB. I am aware that there are a number of upcoming workshops on developing strategies to regulate nanomaterials in the near future - for example, NIST's US Workshop on Standards for EHS Research Needs for Engineered Nanoscale Materials, and NanoStrand's EU workshops on standardisation and characterisation (for details, see SAFENANO's Event Calendar). These i'm sure will be of great benefit to those involved in terms of organising thinking on these topics further, and will provide some more publicity for what is without doubt the most important but least funded area of nanotechnology. Here's hoping someone takes heed and funds the actioning of the findings...

New York Times Blog sparks lively debate

bryony@safenano.org — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 15:53:00 GMT

An article in the New York Times we spotted the other day has sparked lively debate amongst some eminent names within Nanotechnology.

The short article, written by Barnaby J Feder entitled 'No One Can Accuse Them of Acting Rashly' discusses the US Federal Government's latest report into nanotechnology safety concerns (“Prioritization of Environmental, Health and Safety Research Needs for Engineered Nanoscale Materials — An Interim Document for Public Comment.”). Feder argues that although their latest publication is 'an admirable attempt to categorize thinking on this subject', their lack of progress on an area in seeming need of urgent address 'borders on parody'.

Comments from scientists working within the NanoBusiness Alliance, the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, ICON and Environmental Defense amongst others make for fascinating reading, especially as opinions definately clash...definately worth a read!

To view the article and its comments, please click here.

To read “Prioritization of Environmental, Health and Safety Research Needs for Engineered Nanoscale Materials — An Interim Document for Public Comment.” please click here.