Donald Ewert, the director of field services for nanoTox, a safety consulting company based in the United States, has an idea about how to tackle the seemingly impossible task of addressing and regulating the potential toxicity of nanomaterials. Speaking at a recent Washington, D.C. workshop that brought U.S. and European Union officials together to push for action on nano-related safety, Ewert suggested a system based on the one used for pharmaceuticals: categories. “What if we could look at these things and say, ‘Oh, that’s a Category E, that’s a bad one.’ Or, “That’s a Category A, that’s nothing to worry about’?” he asked. The categories could be similar to those used for drugs, where, for example, low-risk drugs like aspirin, which are generally dangerous only in unusually large amounts, are at one end, and chemicals that are toxic at only a bit more than the recommended dose, such as Botox and some anticancer drugs, are at the other. Ewert emphasized that “Risk is about the nature of the hazard plus the amount of expected exposure. Even highly toxic substances might be tolerated at ultra-low doses; on the other hand, a material that’s considered incredibly dangerous isn’t risky at all if humans, animals or the environment aren’t exposed to it.” An important step for moving forward, he added, would be establishing national and international registries to share information. Creating the spectrum of categories, Ewert said, could open up the commercialization of products that contain nanomaterials, since it would give companies, regulators, and the public more confidence. The article can be viewed online at the link below.<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.newhavenindependent.org\/index.php\/archives\/entry\/nano-categories_as_a_safety_stopgap\/id_34929<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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