John Balbus, M.D., M.P.H., is Chief Health Scientist.

Some 216 delegates representing 26 countries converged on the largest city in China last week for the 7^th meeting of the International Standards Organization (ISO) Technical Committee (TC 229) on Nanotechnologies.

In China, the turtle symbolizes cosmic order, strength, endurance and wisdom.  In the US, the turtle has come to symbolize slow progress and not keeping up with the times.  Which representation better captures what's going on in ISO's TC 229?   Maybe a little of both. (more...)

Can nanoparticles get into our drinking water and if so, what's the harm?

Nanoparticles are being used in cosmetics and other personal care products with increasing frequency.  Carbon fullerenes, also known as buckyballs, have recently been touted as imparting age-defying antioxidant benefits when added to skin cream.  And there are some studies that seem to support these claims.  But even if such claimed benefits turn out to be true, this is by no means the end of the story.  (more...)

My last post identified two Section 8(e) "substantial risk" notices pertaining to carbon nanotubes, one submitted by BASF, the other by Arkema.  I have in my files one additional Section 8(e) notice for a single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT), submitted by DuPont.  With three Section 8(e) notices submitted for different rat pulmonary toxicity studies on carbon nanotubes, it's interesting to compare their results. (more...)

Section 8(e) of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) requires any company that manufactures, imports, processes or distributes chemicals in the U.S. to notify EPA within 30 days if it obtains new information that "reasonably supports the conclusion that such substance or mixture presents a substantial risk of injury to health or the environment."  Are there Section 8(e) notices for nanomaterials? (more...)

The manufacture of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) is a very complicated business.  Different production processes leave behind different kinds of metal catalysts, which yield differences in physical and chemical - as well as toxicological - properties of the CNTs.  (more...)

Since my first post concerning EPA's Consent Order, I've been reflecting further on the management conditions it imposes - or, more accurately, on what conditions it doesn't impose.  The Order's only such conditions address potential worker exposure.  What about the rest of the nanomaterial's lifecycle? (more...)

[Part II of this post is available here.] 

Word hit the street today that EPA intends to make public a "sanitized" version of a Consent Order it has negotiated with a producer of multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs).  [A link will be provided once available.]  We obtained a copy of the Order, which has redacted all information claimed confidential by the company involved.  What can we learn from this well-scrubbed Order? (more...)

John Balbus, M.D., M.P.H., is Chief Health Scientist.

At its most recent meeting a few weeks ago, the US Technical Advisory Group (TAG) to the International Standards Organization (ISO) Technical Committee on Nanotechnologies approved a motion to have ISO develop a Technical Report based on the EDF-Dupont Nano Risk Framework (NRF). Or to put it another way in acronym-laden Washington-speak, the US TAG to the ANSI-accredited ISO TC229 approved a TR based on the EDF-DD NRF. (more...)

The insurance industry is out in front on nanotechnology yet again.  As the giant reinsurer Swiss Re did way back in May 2004 with its groundbreaking report Nanotechnology: Small matter, many unknowns, it is once again the insurance industry sounding an early alarm about nanomaterials.  In this case, it's the Continental Western Insurance Group (CWG), which has just announced that it will exclude coverage for "the, as of yet, unknown and unknowable risks created by the products and processes that involve nanotubes." (more...)

I have just finished reading yet another depressing/infuriating publication by the Woodrow Wilson Center's Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies. The new report delineates the many limitations faced by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) in addressing nanotechnology health risks.  The law governing the CPSC has significant weaknesses that prevent it from meeting critical needs, such as constraints on the ability to collect data, require reporting of known hazards, order recalls and promulgate mandatory safety standards.

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