Nobody Knows What Nanoparticles Do -- Yet They Are in Your Food, Cosmetics, and Toys

By Carole Bass, E Magazine. Posted July 11, 2009.

In the U.S., the EPA has emerged as the lead agency on nano oversight. But that's not saying much. It is wrestling with the possible risks of nanomaterials, but so far has taken almost no action to regulate them.

In a voluntary Nanoscale Materials Stewardship Program, the EPA asked companies to submit information about what nanomaterials they're using. Very few did, and even the companies that participated withheld large amounts of data as business secrets. This March, the EPA began requiring manufacturers of carbon nanotubes to file pre-manufacturing notices under the Toxic Substances Control Act. California is requiring carbon nanotube makers to share their environmental, health and safety test data with the state, and is considering imposing the same mandate on makers of nanometal oxides, like the ones Gruden is testing.

But the EPA is not the only federal agency with responsibility for nanomaterials. Cosmetics, sunscreen, and food and beverages--which fall under the jurisdiction of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)--make up roughly 30% of PEN's consumer products inventory. Yet the FDA is poorly equipped to ensure the safety of nano-containing dietary supplements, according to a 2008 report by two former agency officials. (Friends of the Earth has urged mandatory labeling of nanofoods and a moratorium on nano-containing cosmetics until they're shown to be safe.) The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which is responsible for protecting workers, has not even begun to work on nano rules.

A former EPA official, J. Clarence Davies, proposes merging all these agencies and more into a new Department of Environmental and Consumer Protection. A "scientific agency with a strong oversight component," it would cover products, pollution, workplace health and safety, climate change and health effects of nanotechnology as well as other technologies, Davies writes in his April 2009 report, "Oversight of Next Generation Nanotechnology."

Outside the U. S., regulators are taking a somewhat more precautionary approach. Still, governments have adopted very few nano-specific rules to protect people or the environment. But there are bright spots. At Rice University in Houston, Texas, for example, Vicki Colvin and her colleagues are trying to engineer nanomaterials that are safe from the get-go, rather than looking for ways to minimize harm from nanotoxins.

But fears abound that the teeny genie is escaping from its bottle. The asbestos parallel causes particular concern--prompting the Australian Council of Trade Unions, for example, to call for that country to adopt nano regulations by year's end. At the Bethesda workshop in February, Harvard industrial hygienist Robert Herrick advocated an all-out effort to gather information about nano exposures and possible related illnesses. The asbestos industry could have undertaken a similar effort in the 1930s, he noted. Instead, industry execs decided to keep the subject quiet. If they had gone the other way, Herrick wondered, "how different would history be?"

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Carole Bass, a journalist, writes about the environment, workplace health, legal affairs and other subjects.

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