Lawmakers fret over health, safety impacts of nanotechnology
As Congress reauthorizes the National Nanotechnology Initiative,
groups petition the Environmental Protection Agency to step up its regulation of nanomaterials.
Congressional overseers and outside experts are
pressing the Bush administration to direct more of the $1.5 billion nanotechnology research program
toward resolving the environmental, health, and safety issues raised by the manufacture and use
of a rapidly growing number of nanoscale materials.
Since its 2000 inception, the multiagency
National Nanotechnology Initiative has included an R&D component for EHS concerns. But the
NNI has yet to come up with a well-designed plan that is both adequately funded and effectively executed,
says Representative Bart Gordon (D-TN), chairman of the House Committee on Science and Technology.
Although Gordon threatened to mandate that 10% of the NNI funding go to EHS research, the provision
was not part of legislation approved by the committee on 7 May to reauthorize the NNI. The White House
had opposed the mandate, but it has proposed upping EHS spending to $76 million in the next fiscal
year. That would be twice the FY 2005 level and 5% of the NNI.
Meanwhile, a coalition
of environmental groups headed by the International Center for Technology Assessment (ICTA)
filed a petition with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on 1 May demanding that the agency
begin to regulate the most widely used nanomaterial today. Silver particles are used in a wide range
of consumer products, mostly to impart an antimicrobial surface. But two recent studies have found
that socks impregnated with nanoparticles of silver leach the particles when laundered. Silver
is toxic to fish and other aquatic organisms, and researchers have found the nanoparticles in streambeds.
What isn't known is the extent to which the nanoscale form increases silver's toxicity.
The ICTA's petition came
less than two months after the EPA fined Iogear Inc, a California maker of computer mice and keyboards,
more than $200 000 for failing to register its nano-silver products as required by federal
law and for making unsubstantiated claims about their products' antimicrobial properties.
By the ICTA's count, more
than 260 products incorporating silver nanoparticles, including toys, household appliances,
and clothing, are being sold. More than 600 products containing nanomaterials of all kinds are
now on the market, compared with 212 just two years ago, according to David Rejeski, director of
the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN) at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for
Scholars. About half of the products sold fall under the purview of the Consumer Product Safety
Commission, whose involvement with nanotechnology last year was limited to a $20 000 review
of the scientific literature, Rejeski told the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
in April. That committee is also preparing legislation to reauthorize the NNI.
Andrew Maynard, PEN's chief science
adviser, told the House Science Committee in April that the NNI should devote $50 million annually
to "targeted research directly addressing clearly defined strategic [EHS] challenges." Another
$100 million should fund "exploratory research that is conducted within the scope of a strategic
research program." That "top-level, top-down" program would identify the information needed
to regulate or oversee development and use of nanotechnologies, determine which agencies will
lead in addressing specific research issues, and decide how the research will be funded (see PHYSICS
TODAY, November 2007, page 29).
E. Floyd Kvamme, the venture
capitalist who cochairs the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, called
a mandated percentage set-aside approach "arbitrary," "overly prescriptive," and "problematic
in both practice and principle." It's not feasible to designate research projects to be exclusively
EHS in nature, he told Gordon's committee. Moreover, the NNI functions as only a policy and planning
coordinating mechanism, he said; funding levels are established by the individual agencies through
the annual budget process. The fraction of NNI funding devoted to EHS topics is likely to continue
climbing anyway, Kvamme added, as industry picks up more of the applications research and as government
involvement moves increasingly to regulation.
But Maynard argued that
EHS spending estimates provided by the NNI were inflated by the inclusion of marginally related
research. The Government Accountability Office concurred, judging in a report released in April
that $7 million of the $37.7 million reported by the NNI in FY 2006 was incorrectly labeled EHS. PEN
found just $13 million of the NNI research that year had been "highly relevant" to EHS but conceded
that an additional $16 million was "substantially relevant." By comparison, European nations
devoted $24 million in 2006 to research that is highly relevant, according to PEN.
P. Lee Ferguson, professor
of chemistry at the University of South Carolina, told the Senate Commerce Committee hearing that
at least 10% of NNI funding is needed for developing methods to detect and characterize nanomaterials
in the environment, standardize testing methodologies to assess the toxicity and biological
uptake of nanomaterials, and assess human and ecological exposures from releases of nanomaterials.
Highly reactive materials
Nanoparticles are worrisome because
their size allows easy passage into and out of individual cells. Many nanomaterials are designed
to be highly reactive, but their potential interactions with biological material are mostly unknown.
Normally inert gold, for example, becomes highly reactive at the nanoscale, noted Kristen Kulinowski,
executive director at the Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology at Rice University.
CBEN is one of six NSF-funded academic centers focusing exclusively on nanotechnology EHS research
issues. NSF provides the largest share of EHS funding; the administration has requested $30.6
million for FY 2009. The EPA is in store for a nearly 50% increase, to $14.3 million, while NIST, which
received less than $1 million this year for EHS, is slated to receive $12.8 million.
Briefing congressional
staffers in April, Kulinowski said Congress should reconsider whether decisions on regulatory
actions and risk assessments should continue to be based solely on the chemical compositions of
nanomaterials, without regard to their size or structure. Most nanomaterials are subject to the
Toxic Substances Control Act, which lists 75 000 regulated chemical substances. Charles
Auer, director of the EPA's Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, told the staffers that most
of the 35 new nanomaterials submitted to the EPA through "premanufacture notices" since 2005 have
not displayed properties or behaviors that differ from their non-nano forms. Ten US chemical and
materials manufacturers to date have committed under a stewardship program to voluntarily submit
information to the EPA on nanomaterials they develop.
Computational models
that can predict how nanoparticles will interact with organisms top a list of EHS research needs
unveiled on 1 May by the International Council on Nanotechnology, a stakeholder group housed at
Rice. The NSF-funded ICON study estimated that those models will require 10 years or more of R&D.
PEN, ICON, and others have
warned that EHS issues need to be resolved if nanotechnology is to thrive and avoid a repeat of the
public backlash that accompanied commercial introduction of genetically modified foods during
the 1990s. With new applications appearing at the rate of three to four per week, Rejeski cautioned,
"If government and industry do not work to build public confidence in nanotechnology, consumers
may reach for the 'no-nano' label in the future."
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