06.20.08
Nanotechnology:alarm voiced by scientists not shared by public
It turns out that scientists are more concerned about potential health and environmental risks of the new nanotechnology than the public. Over 30 percent of scientists expressed concern that nanotechnology may pose risks to human health while only 20 percent of the general public shared their fears. When it comes to allaying public fears, which are more prevalent in Europe than they are in the United States, the few “scientific” studies that exist should be raising even more alarm bells than they are assuaging anxiety.
For example, in a report issued by researchers at L’Oreal in collaboration with scientists at the University of Queensland, Australia, the finding was “that nanoparticles do not pose a risk to human health…[because]there was no evidence to suggest that nanoparticles actually penetrate the epidermis or the dermis.”
This is hardly reassuring, as more and more anti-aging products entering the market purport to be effective precisely because their high tech delivery systems, based on nanocapsules, fullerenes and the like, penetrate to the deeper layers of the skin, carrying their age-defying ingredients with them.
Either they penetrate or they don’t—which is it? Assuming the worst-case (or best-case depending on your point of view) scenario, and some particles do penetrate, it raises questions such as: how do nano-based cosmetic formulations behave once they are applied to the skin? If particles penetrate the skin’s inner layer due to their size, could this then lead to the particles entering the bloodstream? If so what might the implications be?
Scientists are also voicing misgivings over potential chemical instability of nano manipulated particles, particularly when combined with other compounds, as is the case with cosmetic formulations. The newest generation of micronized titanium dioxide particles for example are so-called “buffered,” often with an aluminum coating. (If this sounds familiar, one may recall the not-so-many-years distant controversy over anti-perspirants containing aluminum causing allergic reactions.) Tiny aluminum-coated particles displaying chemical instability sounds like a high tech nightmare waiting to happen, but the bottom line is that at this point we just don’t know what effects, if any, the new technology may have on public health. At this moment all we know is what we don’t know, since, according to nanotechnology expert Dr. Jay Nadeau of McGill University, once particles reach a certain size their behavior becomes “unpredictable.”
This is why, with The Nanotech Report: 4th Edition, by Lux Research, indicating that the market for nanotechnology manufactured goods is estimated to be worth $2.6 trillion by the year 2015, more scientists world wide are calling for more testing. According to a consumer survey by Germany’s Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BIR) “clear definitions, terms and standards as well as far more research into the potential problems of nanotechnology” is needed before the science is used to a greater degree in products. The German survey confirms calls by scientists and others across the world for more regulatory oversight of nanotechnology.
The explosion of growth in the market place of nanoproducts suggests that the real research and development work into their safety be carried out now, while the technology is still in its infancy.
