Comments on: Nano packaging of food kills deadly bacteria, but government says no go.

By: Cindy Findley

Cindy Findley — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:16:00 +0000

There will be a 4-day consultation meeting of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act Scientific Advisory Panel (FIFRA SAP) to consider and review a set of scientific issues related to the assessment of hazard and exposure associated with nanosilver and other nanometal pesticide products.

DATES: The consultation meeting will be held on November 3 – 6, 2009, from approximately 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The consultation meeting will be held at the Environmental Protection Agency, Conference Center, Lobby Level, One Potomac Yard (South Bldg.), 2777 S. Crystal Dr., Arlington, VA 22202.

Comments: The Agency encourages that written comments be submitted by October 20, 2009 and requests for oral comments be submitted by October 27, 2009. Submit your comments, identified by docket identification (ID) number EPA-HQ-OPP-2009-0683, by one of the following methods:
• Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov. Follow the on-line instructions for submitting comments.
• Mail: Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) Regulatory Public Docket (7502P), Environmental Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW., Washington, DC 20460-0001.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Joseph E. Bailey, DFO, Office of Science Coordination and Policy (7201M), Environmental Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW., Washington, DC 20460-0001; telephone number: (202) 564-2045; fax number: (202) 564-8382; e-mail address: bailey.joseph@epa.gov.

EPA source: http://www.FederalRegister.com

By: Is nanotech a test-case for new attitudes to chemical regulation? « Health & Environment

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 16:20:51 +0000

[...] Opinion: There’s an interesting short article by Andrew Schneider on Cold Truth, about how in the US, regulators are frustrating the commercial [...]

By: Paul Whaley

Paul Whaley — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 07:58:05 +0000

It’s interesting to see that you are covering silver nanotech – there is a great deal of concern about this in the environmental community, and (at least over here in Europe) increasing concern among the medical community.

Although I sympathise with Norwood’s commercial concerns, I think you capture the chief concern there in the final paragraph: this technology hasn’t been tested for safety. As far as I know, we don’t even know what the protocols should be for testing nanotech. In light of that, I think it’s very sensible that the EPA approaches the prospect of mass-use of nanotech (especially in contact with food) with caution.

Medical concerns seem to centre on the biocidal properties of nanosilver. Of course, there is a need to address the problems of growing antibiotic resistance, but there is an argument that to resort to technologies such as nanosilver is (a) looking in the wrong place for a solution, and (b) could conceivably make the problem worse.

The argument for (a) is the spread of MRSA is caused by poor hygiene practices, under-staffing and misuse of antibiotics – adding silver to the mix puts a temporary patch on the problem, but won’t solve it.

For (b), one concern is that silver could encourage antibiotic resistance, because bacteria use the same cellular mechanism for ejecting unwanted silver ions as they do for ejecting the beta-lactam class of antibiotics (currently about 50% of the antibiotics we use).

There’s a brief overview of this issue in the May issue of our newsletter, accessible as a PDF from our archive here:
http://healthandenvironmentblog.wordpress.com/issue-archive/

This is an interesting and complex environmental health issue – as a new, untested technology it’s almost as though nanotech is a test for whether or not the environmental and health safeguards we are finally beginning to put in place to deal with chemical technologies are more effective than what was, in the past, basically a “suck-it-and-see” approach.