Some 600 consumer products on store shelves today -- including some
lipsticks, as well as sunscreens and even food products -- contain
nanoparticles, minuscule objects that can be as tiny as 1/10,000 the
thickness of human hair. The industry is growing in leaps and bounds,
though little is yet known about what health or environmental problems
the technology may bring.
Image: Getty Images
Dear EarthTalk: What is "nanotechnology?" I’ve heard that nanoparticles are already in consumer products, yet we haven't really studied their potential health impacts.
-- Dan Zeff, San Francisco, CA
Nanotechnology makes use of minuscule objects—whose width can be 10,000 times narrower than a human hair—known as nanoparticles. Upwards of 600 products on store shelves today contain them, including transparent sunscreen, lipsticks, anti-aging creams and even food products.
Global nanotechnology sales have grown substantially in recent years, to $50 billion in 2007, according to Lux Research, author of the annual Nanotech Report. And the final tally isn’t in yet, but analysts had predicted 2008 sales to be $150 billion. The National Science Foundation says the industry could be worth $1 trillion by 2015, when it would employ two million workers directly.
What makes nanoparticles so useful is their tiny size, which allows for manipulation of color, solubility, strength, magnetic behavior and electrical conductivity. Nanoparticles do exist in nature, and they’re also created inadvertently through some industrial processes. What’s new—and potentially hazardous—is the widespread engineering of these particles for commercial purposes.
While there is no conclusive evidence that nanomaterials are either unsafe or not, health advocates worry that we’re already putting them on our bodies and ingesting them as if they’d been thoroughly tested and proven safe. Animal studies, including one with rats at the University of Rochester, have shown that some nanoparticles can cross the blood-brain barrier, which protects the brain from toxins in the bloodstream. And inhaled nanoparticles have also harmed the lungs of animal test subjects.
Despite these and other studies, nanomaterials are virtually unregulated in the U.S. And of $1.3 billion budgeted for research in 2006, only $38 million went to examining risks to health and to the environment.
“While the benefits of nanotechnology are widely publicized, the discussion of the potential effects of their widespread use in consumer and industrial products is just beginning to emerge,” reports the Journal of Nanobiotechnology. “Both pioneers of nanotechnology and its opponents are finding it extremely hard to argue their case as there is limited information available to support one side or the other.”
Europe’s regulators are far more wary about nanotechnology than their American counterparts. Britain’s Royal Society recommended in 2004 that nanoparticles be viewed as brand new substances, and the European Commission is examining them on a case-by-case basis. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is loosely charged with regulating nanotechnology here, but has barely dipped its toe in the water.
Taken together, the evidence suggests considerable uncertainty about the use of nano-ingredients in consumer products. It’s just not known if they’re safe, which begs the question: Why have we gone ahead and approved them for commercial use? Indeed, we may look back at our current decade and see it, for better or worse, as a time when tiny things caused big and momentous changes in our lives.
CONTACTS: EU’s REACH Law, www.ec.europa.eu/environment/chemicals/reach/reach_intro.htm; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Nanotechnology Page, www.epa.gov/ncer/nano.
EarthTalk is produced by E/The Environmental Magazine. SEND YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTIONS TO: EarthTalk, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; earthtalk@emagazine.com. Read past columns at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/archives.php. EarthTalk is now a book! Details and order information at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalkbook.
See what we're tweeting about
7 Comments
Add CommentI can't wait to see more nanotech products. But I can wait until they are safely tested and regulated. Love life! :)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is a useless junky article and shouldnt be in a scientific publication. It's nothing but fear-mongering. All these claims tht no one is regulating nanoparticles. Well, without some kind of data about effects there is nothing to regulate. No agency or political body can issue regulations about the unknown. Come on, you should be writing and summarizing real data, real studies, real work in the real world about collecting information on exposure to man-made nanoparticles.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think that nanoparticles have been around since the earth was formed, there are lots of natural events that can cause them, but now that science and industry have named them and classified them and found out their special attributes they are beginning to utilize their special properties. Are Universities and medical and scientific institutions doing or planning any research? Reporting that would be useful. Fear-mongering by writing that all the effects are unknown, so better get under your desk and whimper are not useful bot harmful.
Absolutely agree that this is nothing but ridiculous fear-mongering. Oh God- what if my genetically-engineered corn now also has.... NANOPARTICLES!? Oh noez!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is almost as sad as the SARS panic.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWow...WHAT THE FUCK are you talking about , this shit is man made and nowhere to be found in nature. Fear-mongering ? ... if you wish to stay ignorant about this because it does indeed sound harmfull and very , very unlogical to ingest , I REPEAT this IS NOWHERE TO BE FOUND IN NATURE , you DONT NEED this. Silly minds.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisResearch does show some nano particles are clearly toxic while some other nano particles are not. The statement in the article: "there is no conclusive evidence that nanomaterials are either unsafe or not" is meaningless and of no use because it lumps all nano particles together. We need comprehensive research on all nanos, we need to regulate them on a scale from banned to innocuous, and we then need to have laws that will punish people and corporations to such a level that they will not even consider breaking the rules.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAgreed-- article sux! Now know less than before.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this