Tag Archives: carbon nanotubes

State-level nano regulation: Yes, indeed, the industry "should have seen it coming" – it caused it!

By Richard Denison | Bio | Published: September 10, 2010

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.

I just read an interesting column by John DiLoreto, CEO of NanoReg, that appears online at Nanotechnology Now. It's titled "We Should Have Seen It Coming: States Regulating Nanotechnology." It nicely describes the important role states play in advancing environmental policy and regulation – especially when the feds are asleep at the wheel. And it also gives a neat rundown of the various state actions aimed at nanomaterials that are underway.

But, search as I might, I couldn't find a single acknowledgment in Mr. DiLoreto's latest column – or in his earlier related column titled "What Drives the Regulation of Nanomaterials?" – of the role the nanotechnology industry itself played in bringing all of this on itself.

That's quite an omission, in my view, given that the industry's actions (or, more accurately, the lack thereof) played a central role in getting us to where we are (or, more accurately, aren't) today on nanotechnology oversight. That includes driving states to feel they had to step in to fill the federal void. Read More »

Posted in Health Policy, Nanotechnology, TSCA | Also tagged industry tactics, nanosilver, Significant New Use Rule (SNUR), test rule, U.S. states | Comments closed

Raising the bar for chemical safety will spur, not stifle, innovation

By Richard Denison | Bio | Published: May 9, 2010

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.

An emerging chemical industry talking point in TSCA reform is the claim that imposing new requirements on new chemicals will somehow stifle innovation. The milder manifestation of this perspective emanates from those who oppose requiring a safety determination for new chemicals unless they raise major red flags in an initial review.

But some in the industry go further, arguing that even requiring safety data for new chemicals would put the big chill on development of new chemicals.

I beg to differ with both arguments. This post will make the opposite case, and will also argue that true innovation embraces rather than shuns safety, and demands the information needed to demonstrate it. Read More »

Posted in Health Policy, TSCA and REACH | Also tagged biomonitoring, Canada, China, data requirements, DuPont, exposure and hazard, High Production Volume (HPV), industry tactics, Japan, Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT), Persistent Bioaccumulative and Toxic (PBT), Safe Chemicals Act | Comments closed

Study raises big questions about worker protection in nanotech labs

By Cal Baier-Anderson | Bio | Published: January 11, 2010

Cal Baier-Anderson, Ph.D., is a Health Scientist.

When it comes to chemical exposures, workers are on the front line. Workers are usually the most likely to be exposed to harmful levels of chemicals, because they are the ones producing, processing, handling, sampling and measuring, transferring and transporting chemicals in larger and more concentrated quantities.

Throughout history, workers have been the canaries in the coal mines; the first to exhibit the health effects of hazardous chemical exposures, from scrotal cancer in chimney sweeps, to mesothelioma in shipyard and construction workers to liver cancer in vinyl chloride workers.

For these reasons, EDF has argued that workers handling or otherwise likely to be exposed to nanomaterials must be protected from harm (see our earlier posts here, here and here). Now, a new government study published in the respected journal Environmental Health Perspectives reveals that certain comfortable assumptions about nanomaterial laboratory safety may be downright wrong. Read More »

Posted in Environment, Health Science, Nanotechnology | Also tagged exposure and hazard, inhalation, worker safety | Comments closed

The nanotube SNURs: Nano step forward, nano step back

By Richard Denison | Bio | Published: August 21, 2009

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.

In June, EPA published a Federal Register notice that included Significant New Use Rules (SNURs) for two carbon nanotubes (as well as 21 other chemicals). That notice certainly got the attention of lawyers in town (see here, here and here). The nanotube SNURs would require anyone planning to produce or process either of the two substances to notify EPA if the person intended not to comply with the (rather limited) risk management conditions specified by EPA. Well, as reported yesterday by Sara Goodman of E&E News, EPA is now withdrawing the SNURs, at least temporarily.

Read More »

Posted in Health Policy, Nanotechnology, TSCA | Also tagged chemical identity, Confidential Business Information (CBI), risk assessment, Significant New Use Rule (SNUR) | Comments closed

Hiding a toxic nanomaterial's identity: TSCA's disappearing act

By Richard Denison | Bio | Published: July 14, 2009

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.

In earlier posts (here and here), I discussed a notice EPA had received in July of 2008 from BASF reporting toxic effects at very low doses of a carbon nanotube (CNT) observed in a 90-day rat inhalation study. In that notice, BASF had declared the specific identity of its CNT to be confidential business information, hence denying that information to the public. Now, in a setting more to its liking, it appears the company has decided to reveal the identity after all. Read More »

Posted in Health Policy, Nanotechnology, TSCA | Also tagged chemical identity, Confidential Business Information (CBI), Government Accountability Office, inhalation, risk assessment | Comments closed

EPA's New Chemicals Program: TSCA dealt EPA a very poor hand

By Richard Denison | Bio | Published: April 16, 2009

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.

[The first post in this series can be found here.]

Some in the chemical industry point to EPA's New Chemicals Program as a robust program, one that could serve as a model for reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Most recently, the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association (NPRA) did so in its testimony at a recent House of Representatives subcommittee's TSCA oversight hearing. So just how robust is EPA's program on new chemicals? Read More »

Posted in Health Policy, TSCA | Also tagged Confidential Business Information (CBI), risk assessment, Significant New Use Rule (SNUR) | Comments closed

MWCNT toxicity: Another dot to asbestos is connected

By Richard Denison | Bio | Published: March 25, 2009

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.

Some months ago, my colleague John Balbus posted here about studies finding that when multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) are injected into the abdominal cavities of mice, they induce inflammation and mesothelioma-like reactions similar to those caused by asbestos. He appropriately cautioned that – among other critical questions – these studies had not demonstrated that inhaled MWCNTs could actually move out of the lung and into the tissues where asbestos gives rise to its effects. Well, that particular dot now appears to have been connected. Read More »

Posted in Health Science | Also tagged inhalation, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) | Comments closed

Nano reporting goes mandatory

By Richard Denison | Bio | Published: February 10, 2009

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.

It had to happen sooner or later. After several years spent by the UK and US governments conceptualizing, vetting, proposing, again vetting, developing, yet again vetting, and finally launching and reporting on their voluntary reporting programs for engineered nanoscale materials – only to have them largely spurned by the intended targets – other governments observing all this have decided that mandatory approaches are needed. Read More »

Posted in Health Policy, Nanotechnology | Also tagged Canada, data requirements, U.S. states | Comments closed

Clump Change: Challenging conventional wisdom about nanoparticle aggregation

By Richard Denison | Bio | Published: December 5, 2008

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.

In some nanotechnology circles, it is almost a mantra that, once released to the environment, nanoparticles will inevitably aggregate or agglomerate into larger masses and thereby lose their nanoscale-related properties and, by implication at least, any associated risks.

But can we count on nanoparticles released to the environment to self-regulate their own risk so conveniently? Read More »

Posted in Nanotechnology | Also tagged National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), risk assessment | Comments closed

Down the Drain, then Down the Hatch

By Cal Baier-Anderson | Bio | Published: November 18, 2008

Cal Baier-Anderson, Ph.D., is a Health Scientist.

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. Read More »

Posted in Nanotechnology | Also tagged consumer products | Comments closed

Chemicals & Nanomaterials

Tag Archives: carbon nanotubes

State-level nano regulation: Yes, indeed, the industry "should have seen it coming" – it caused it!

Raising the bar for chemical safety will spur, not stifle, innovation

Study raises big questions about worker protection in nanotech labs

The nanotube SNURs: Nano step forward, nano step back

Hiding a toxic nanomaterial's identity: TSCA's disappearing act

EPA's New Chemicals Program: TSCA dealt EPA a very poor hand

MWCNT toxicity: Another dot to asbestos is connected

Nano reporting goes mandatory

Clump Change: Challenging conventional wisdom about nanoparticle aggregation

Down the Drain, then Down the Hatch

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