Regulatory mechanisms need to be strengthened to deal with nanotechnology

A new report requested by Health Canada on the regulatory challenges of nanotechnology urges a precautionary approach to assessing risk of new nano-scale materials and products and calls for a strengthening of existing regulatory mechanisms accompanied by a greater investment in risk-related research.

Produced by an expert panel assembled by the Council of Canadian Academies (CCA), the report says Canada should pool its efforts with the research of other countries ,given the sheer size of the science and technologies associated with nanotechnology.

"The general approach to risk assessment that has been used for clinical substances is still an approach that in the panel's view can work with nanomaterials. It's carrying out a program that requires a lot of science," says CCA president Dr Nicholson. "One of the really important points in the report is that the panel didn't find any evidence that there were risks in any existing materials in the marketplace that can't be dealt with through existing regulatory materials. But we're very early days in the development of nanotechnology."

The report was prepared by an an Expert Panel on Nanotechnology chaired by Dr Pekka Silvero, former dean of the Univ of Toronto's faculty of arts and science.

Specifically, the report calls for the development of an interim classification of nanomaterials, a review of current regulatory criteria for assessing nanomaterials and products for environmental and health effects, standardized approaches to the proper handling of nanomaterials to ensure worker safety and a strengthening of the current metrological capacity for nanomaterials.

Nicholson says many reports have been produced globally on nanotechnology but this expert panel is the first exclusively devoted to assessing the state of scientific knowledge concerning engineered nanomaterials from the perspective of risk assessment and regulation.

The panel also weighs in on the dissemination of nanotech knowledge and says the public should be widely engaged both as citizen and consumers. It found that public awareness of nanotechnology in Canada was relatively low , meaning that public attitudes are "vulnerable to exaggerated claims by both proponents and critics".

For a copy of the report, go to www.scienceadvice.ca.

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