NRC Calls for Coordinated Effort to Address Nanomaterial Safety
A National Academies National Research Council panel has issued a report
acknowledging the progress made by the National Nanotechnology Initiative
in researching the environmental and potential health effects of engineered
nanomaterials (ENM), but criticizing an overall failure to link research with
strategies to prevent and manage risks.
Headed by Jonathan Samet, who teaches at the University of Southern
California Keck School of Medicine and has long researched, written about
and crusaded against tobacco smoke and the industry, the panel calls for the
development of a strategic research plan “independent of any one stakeholder
group, [with] human and environmental health as its primary focus.”
The report advocates that four research categories be addressed within five years: “identify and quantify the nanomaterials being released and the populations and environments being exposed”; “understand processes that affect both potential hazards and exposure”; “examine nanomaterial interactions in complex systems ranging from subcellular to ecosystems”; and “support an adaptive research and knowledge infrastructure for accelerating progress and providing rapid feedback to advance research.” According to the council panel, the need for a strategic approach is critical given that ENM “are already in industrial and consumer products, including drug-delivery systems, stain resistant clothing, solar cells, and food additives.”
Challenges to assessing risks are identified as (i) a “great diversity of nanomaterial types and variants”; (ii) “lack of capabilities to monitor rapid changes in current, emerging, and potential ENM applications and to identify and address the potential consequences for EHS [environmental, health and safety] risks”; and (iii) “lack of standard test materials and adequate models for investigating EHS risks, leading to great uncertainty in describing and quantifying nanomaterial hazards and exposures.” The report also notes that increased ENM production, “a growing awareness that adequate methods are not available to detect and characterize the materials in the environment” and “recognition that the materials are in products or environments where exposures potentially can occur,” have led to increased funding for ENM research. Still, key topics, such as “the effects of ingested ENMs on human health,” remain unaddressed by research, according to the report.
