Report Questions International Standards for Nanoscale Materials in Food Packaging
The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) recently issued a report questioning the ability of international governing bodies to adequately address the use of engineered nanoscale materials (ENMs) in food contact and packaging materials. Noting that the Codex Alimentarius Commission, operating under the auspices of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO), “has yet to agree on any agri-nanotechnology standards, nor indeed, even to begin work on such standards to protect consumer health,” the IATP report calls for a renewed effort to assess and regulate ENMs as a whole before specific applications are released on the market.
To this end, IATP policy analyst Steven Suppan provides an overview of
Codex’s regulatory mechanisms in addition to outlining challenges unique
to ENMs in food packaging, such as a dearth of scientific data and confusion
over the definition of “nanomaterials.” In particular, Suppan urges Codex to
avoid duplicative work by taking a comprehensive, health-based approach to
agri-nanotechnology as opposed to a piecemeal one focused on legalizing
the “commercialization of this or that product.” According to Suppan, such
a process would be supported “by the establishment of adequately funded
FAO/WHO expert panels to assess the risks of food additives, pesticides or
veterinary medicines that incorporate ENMs.”
“Sometimes a political gesture is important, even from resource-deprived
entities such as FAO, WHO and Codex,” concludes Suppan. “Committing
Codex to work on agri-nanotechnology standards would be a politically and
technically significant first step to put pressure on ‘other entities’ to complete
enough of their work to help enable Codex to face the many challenges of
standard setting for agricultural and food applications of nanotechnologies.”
Meanwhile, researchers with the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati
have apparently identified the presence of amorphous carbon nanoparticles
(CNPs) in carbohydrate-based food caramels such as bread, sugar caramel,
corn flakes, and biscuits. Md Palashuddin Sk, et al., “Presence of Amorphous
Carbon Nanoparticles in Food Caramels,” Scientific Reports, April 2012. After
analyzing bread buns, jaggery and other items purchased at local markets, the
study’s authors reported that nanoparticles were present in samples “where
the preparation of the food mainly involves heating of the starting ingredients
in the absence of water, leading to formation of caramels.” In these instances,
they noted, CNPs formed at higher temperatures were smaller than those
formed at lower temperatures.
Based on these findings, the researchers speculated that the public might
better accept nanoparticles in consumer products if they were derived from
naturally occurring food sources, “some of which have been consumed for
centuries, and thus . . . considered as safe.” As the study concluded, “Arguably . . .
this discovery revealed that human consumption of nanomaterials in the form
of food caramels has its history possibly from the period when humans for
the first time started eating bread… Our findings of the presence of fluorescent
CNPs in food caramels may also help their use in tracking and imaging
conjugated biomolecules and drugs in vivo, without being imperiled.”
