2009, a big year for nano safety
SAFENANO provides a summary of key nano health and safety developments from 2009, and considers how these are likely to shape nano in 2010.
The directors of SAFENANO, a venture by the Institute of Occupational Medicine (IOM), United Kingdom, to help industrial and academic communities quantify and control the risks of nanotechnology to their workforce, as well as to consumers and the general population, have released an overview of what they consider some of the key developments in nanotechnology environmental health and safety (EHS) from 2009.
It is UK and EU centric but with some reference to Australia and the US, though I suspect that a lot of what applies to the UK and Europe is also applicable to Australia.
Unanswered questions
SAFENANO suggests that even though there has been an increased co-ordination at government level, increased knowledge sharing through a series of state of the art reviews as well as increased research funding opportunities, many fundamental questions remain unanswered and are likely to remain so for some time.
Similarly, they acknowledge an enormous increase in research worldwide with interesting studies emerging, yet they find that few of the key issues relating to exposure, toxicology and risk of nanoparticles and nanotubes remain answered, for example, what are safe levels of exposure for certain nanoparticles, appropriate measurement methods and agreed protocols for nanotubes.
Nano sunscreens
Sunscreen gets a mention (a topic that has received a lot of media attention in Australia). They review the various reports and research that has been done on this. In particular they highlight two Non-government Organisation (NGO) reports: One from Friends of the Earth who argue that adding nanoparticles to sunscreens presented an “unnecessary potential risk to our health and to the environment, with no significant gain”; the second from The Environmental Working Group who changed their position on nano sunscreens from previous years. Until 2009 the group stated that a lack of definitive safety data and consumer information on these common new ingredients make it very hard to support the use of nano. In their 2009 report they say that zinc and titanium-based formulations “are among the safest, most effective sunscreens on the market based on available evidence”. Their reasoning is as follows: “… many months and nearly 400 peer-reviewed studies later, we find ourselves drawing a different conclusion, and recommending some sunscreens that may contain nano-sized ingredients“.
SAFENANO paper
You can download their paper here