Last week’s State of the Union Address found President Obama bragging about how few regulations he had implemented as president and how much support he’s going to continue offer the private sector. This sounds an awful lot like business as usual for the White House—promoting innovation at any cost, no matter the impact on human health and the environment. Case in point: nanomaterials.
The National Research Council (NRC) released a long report last week identifying major gaps in environmental, health and safety research of nanomaterials. Its conclusion: “Despite the promise of nanotechnology…the future of safe and sustainable nanotechnology-based materials, products, and processes is uncertain.”
This warning follows a growing body of science demonstrating potential dangers associated with nanomaterials—a new class of chemicals developed through shrinking the particle sizes of existing elements, like carbon and silver. Turns out that changing the size of particles radically changes their behavior, properties and risks.
Corporations have blithely embraced nanomaterials as the next big thing, embedding them in everything from cutting boards to cosmetics to food itself. Unregulated, unmonitored and unlabeled, these nanomaterials may be lurking in your own home.
More than 50 scientists collaborated on the NRC report, which highlights a lack of public knowledge about how nanomaterials are being used by industry. The report also underlines the need for more and better science on how to monitor and test the safety of these materials.
The report identifies a serious gap – missing research on the effects of ingested nanomaterials on human health. Food processors are using nanomaterials in an attempt to tinker with the color and nutritional content of food (like shrinking fat molecules of cream used in ice cream) and to preserve and package it (like coating fresh produce with a thin nano-wax to keep it fresh).
The scope of nanomaterials in our food system is unknown. Even the National Organic Program, which sets the rules that govern the USDA organic label, is having an ongoing debate about whether food processors should be allowed to use nanomaterials.
The NRC is calling for the U.S. government to spend an additional $24 million a year for the next five years to fill in some critical gaps in environmental, health and safety data. This relatively small expenditure of money could yield important information that could help policy makers and regulators understand the behavior of nanomaterials, according to the NRC.
But understanding the risks is only part of the problem. We also need rules and regulations that protect consumers from these risks. The regulations that do exist for chemicals aren’t being rigorously applied to nanomaterials and are largely ill-equipped to do so. We need new rules to address these new risks.
The NRC has identified a clear need for more science and more understanding of nanoparticles, noting the possible dangers they pose to human health and the environment. In the absence of information regarding the danger of nanomaterials, government cannot simply give industry a free pass to do as it pleases. This appears especially germane to nanomaterials, which are often needlessly embedded in consumer products as a marketing gimmick. Check out this nano-silver fridge. Do we really need a nano-pesticide touching all of our food?
READ the Food & Water Watch report on nanotechnology here.
Download the Food & Water Watch report on nanotechnology here.
Fonte: Food & Water Watch
