Tag: nanotechnology
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Researchers Find Titanium Nanoparticles in Food and Personal Care Products
U.S., Swiss and Norwegian researchers have analyzed an array of consumer products sold in the United States to determine how much titanium dioxide they contained by weight in a first-ever human exposure analysis and concluded that food sources likely account for most of the titanium nanoparticles released into the environment. Alex Weir, et al., “Titanium…
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NRC Calls for Coordinated Effort to Address Nanomaterial Safety
A National Academies National Research Council panel has issued a report acknowledging the progress made by the National Nanotechnology Initiative in researching the environmental and potential health effects of engineered nanomaterials (ENM), but criticizing an overall failure to link research with strategies to prevent and manage risks. Headed by Jonathan Samet, who teaches at the…
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Margherita Poto, “Food and nano-food within the Chinese regulatory system: no need to have overregulation,” European Journal of Law & Technology, 2011
University of Turin Law Professor Margherita Poto explores the food safety laws in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong to set the stage for discussing how their regulatory systems may be sufficiently advanced to address the potential challenges posed by the use of nanotechnology in the food…
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EPA Watchdog Recommends Action on Nanomaterials
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Office of Inspector General (IG) has issued a report critical of how effectively the agency “is managing the human health and environmental risks of nanomaterials.” Noting that EPA has the statutory authority to regulate nanomaterials, the IG found that it “currently lacks the environmental and human health exposure and…
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New Report Urges Food Industry to Assess Nanomaterial Risks
The nonprofit group As You Sow has issued a report calling on the food industry to evaluate the safety of nanomaterials used in food packaging. Titled “Sourcing Framework for Food and Food Packaging Products Containing Nanomaterials,” the report claims that better communication is needed between food companies and their suppliers to “protect themselves from financial…
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Researchers Analyze Media Coverage of Nanotechnology Risks
Lehigh University researchers studying U.S. and U.K. nanotechnology news coverage from 2000 to 2009 have found relatively few articles about “nanotechnology health, environmental, and societal risks.” Sharon Friedman & Brenda Egolf, “A Longitudinal Study of Newspaper and Wire Service Coverage of Nanotechnology Risks,” Risk Analysis, November 2011. Their article appeared in an issue devoted to…
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Article on Nanofoods Draws Lessons from GMO Debate
A recent article published in Nature Nanotechnology examines how governments, scientists and food companies can better anticipate the public reaction to nanofoods based on lessons learned from the commercialization of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Timothy V. Duncan, “The communication challenges presented by nanofoods,” Nature Nanotechnology, October 2011. Authored by Food and Drug Administration (FDA) research…
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EC Adopts “Nanomaterial” Definition
The European Commission (EC) has adopted a recommendation defining “nanomaterials” as materials “whose main constituents have a dimension of between 1 and 100 billionth of a meter.” According to an October 18, 2011, press release, this definition considers only “the size of the constituent particles of a material, rather than hazard or risk.” As such,…