Renewed call for nanotech moratorium
nano geek | 17.07.2006 11:55 | Bio-technology | Technology
A coalition of environmental, development and animal rights organisations has condemned the UK government for putting the economic well being of the nanotech industry above public and environment saftey by failing to introduce nanotech regulation. They also renewed calls for a moratorium on the commercial and environmental release of engineered nanoparticles.
Version published in the Independent
http://comment.independent.co.uk/letters/article1173208.ece
Full text of open letter to DEFRA on Nanotech regulation
We are writing to express our deep concern at the government’s failure to regulate the first generation of nanotechnology products. We demand a moratorium on the commercial and environmental release of free-engineered nanomaterials and urge the government to commit to a date by which mandatory regulations for nanotechnology products will be put in place.
There are already over one hundred products containing nanomaterials on the UK market. These include sunscreens and cosmetics applied to the skin, fuel additives used in the engines of public buses, and wound dressings. We expect the range and number of nanomaterials entering the market to continue to rise. None of these products are publicly recorded, required to undergo a safety review or labelled. So far there are no specific regulations that address the changed properties of nanomaterials nor any that determine liability should something go wrong.
A 2004 study by the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineers [1] (the RS/RAEng report) - commissioned by this government - raised serious concerns about the risks of toxicity of engineered nanomaterials and advised a precautionary approach to their use. This position has been widely supported by citizens’ juries, civil society organisations and research scientists in the field of nanotoxicology, has been acknowledged by the UK government and was most recently outlined in strong terms by the European Union’s highest expert group on toxicology (SCENIHR [2]).
In response to these concerns, DEFRA has embarked on a totally inappropriate course of inaction that turns the precautionary principle, to which the government is committed [3] , on its head. DEFRA regularly acknowledges the potential hazards of nanomaterials yet argues that until the risks are better characterized they cannot write the rules to restrict these products. It is proposing a voluntary notification scheme for ‘engineered nanoscale materials’ to gather data on nanotechnology hazards. The effect of this is to delay regulatory action whilst giving nanotechnology companies a green light to continue introducing nanomaterials into consumer products untested, unregulated and unlabelled. This falls far short of the precautionary action that is absolutely and urgently required to deal with this new technology. This is highly irresponsible and can be expected to raise significant public concern.
Specific problems with Defra’s scheme are:
It is voluntary
Companies can choose whether or not to submit details of their products and which data to submit. Companies are unlikely to submit information that is not in their commercial interest, such as revealing potential safety problems with their products or the technology as a whole. Thus, the conclusions will be partial and misleading, an unreliable base for developing policy.
The results are not publicly accessible
We fully support the RS/RAEng’s recommendation (recommendation 12.3) that consumer products containing nanoparticles should be labelled. This most urgently applies to nano-products in the food chain and in health and beauty products that can directly affect health. A compulsory notification scheme combined with an accessible public register could at least provide the public with a means of finding out where, by whom and in which products nanomaterials are being used and enable them to exercise choice. However, DEFRA is proposing to keep the contents of the voluntary database as internal information in order to protect commercial confidentiality. Members of the public would be required to file Freedom of Information requests each time they consider a new product, to find out if they would be consuming or putting nanoparticles on their skin. This is an impractical and totally unreasonable barrier.
It lacks urgency
This is too little, too slow, too late. The government has had plenty of time to move to a mandatory notification scheme and full regulatory control. Instead, two years after the publication of the RS/RAEng report, this voluntary proposal contains no clear commitment or timeline for introducing nanotechnology regulation. By the time of the first environmental releases of genetically modified organisms there was already a full regulatory risk assessment procedure in place and still there was public concern. This time around, with over a hundred nanotechnology products already being sold in the UK, DEFRA is visibly dawdling on the way to the statute book.
It establishes the wrong relationship with Industry
This scheme depends on closer co-operation between the nanotechnology industry and regulators. Rather than exercising oversight in the public interest, DEFRA has drawn up the current proposals in collaboration with industry and is meekly asking for favours in the form of voluntary scraps of data. This is an inappropriate relationship between a potentially polluting and dangerous industry and its regulator. The government is prioritising the economic well being of the nanotechnology industry above the safety of the public and environment.
It is too narrow
The voluntary notification scheme is only concerned with the safety aspects of certain nanomaterials. It excludes consideration of other areas of nanotechnology, for example, nanobiotechnology and of the emerging area of synthetic biology [4]. There is also no scope within the proposal to consider issues beyond toxicity, for example the wider social, economic, democratic, cultural, global and human rights impacts of nanotechnology.
We ask that the government scrap the current plans for a voluntary notification scheme and introduce more robust and comprehensive proposals that should include:
• A review of the level of scientific uncertainty and the ability to reliably assess the safety of existing products using the recent SCENIHR report as a starting point.
• Comprehensive well funded research into the health and environmental risks and other potential impacts posed by nanomaterials. This should include human and environmental risk assessment that relies on sound scientific principles not dependent on animal tests
• Mandatory reporting, safety assessment, emissions minimisation, labelling and liability for new and existing nanomaterials.
• Any approval procedure for nanomaterials should be time limited, and a post-market monitoring plan should be implemented to gather data on their impacts.
• Government plans should be adopted to evaluate and address the wider impacts of the new and especially proprietary nanotechnologies beyond nanosafety questions (particularly the impact on trade, livelihoods human rights and justice).
Such proposals should have a date for implementation spelled out in months not years.
Until and unless there is a robust body of scientific knowledge on the health and environmental impacts, a moratorium should be put in place on the commercial and environmental release of engineered nanomaterials, particularly free-engineered nanoparticles. This is particularly urgent for products intended for consumption, application to the skin or release to the environment.
Tony Juniper - Director, Friends of the Earth (England, Wales and Northern Ireland
Dr Doug Parr - Chief Scientist, Greenpeace UK
Peter Melchett - Policy Director, Soil Association
Andrew Scott - Director of Policy and Programmes, Practical Action
Pat Mooney - Executive Director, ETC Group
Dr Andre Menache - Scientific Consultant, Animal Aid
Olaf Bayer – Researcher, Corporate Watch
Rory O’Neill - Health, Safety and Environment Officer, International Federation of Journalists
references
1. Nanoscience and nanotechnologies: opportunities and uncertainties http://www.nanotec.org.uk/finalReport.htm
2. Scientific Committee On Emerging And Newly Identified Health Risks http://ec.europa.eu/health/ph_risk/committees/04_scenihr/docs/scenihr_o_003b.pdf
3. http://www.hse.gov.uk/aboutus/meetings/ilgra/pppa.htm#3
‘Where there are threats of serious or irreversible environmental damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.’
1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development
4. Background document on synthetic biology
http://www.etcgroup.org/article.asp?newsid=563
http://comment.independent.co.uk/letters/article1173208.ece Full text of open letter to DEFRA on Nanotech regulation
We are writing to express our deep concern at the government’s failure to regulate the first generation of nanotechnology products. We demand a moratorium on the commercial and environmental release of free-engineered nanomaterials and urge the government to commit to a date by which mandatory regulations for nanotechnology products will be put in place.
There are already over one hundred products containing nanomaterials on the UK market. These include sunscreens and cosmetics applied to the skin, fuel additives used in the engines of public buses, and wound dressings. We expect the range and number of nanomaterials entering the market to continue to rise. None of these products are publicly recorded, required to undergo a safety review or labelled. So far there are no specific regulations that address the changed properties of nanomaterials nor any that determine liability should something go wrong.
A 2004 study by the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineers [1] (the RS/RAEng report) - commissioned by this government - raised serious concerns about the risks of toxicity of engineered nanomaterials and advised a precautionary approach to their use. This position has been widely supported by citizens’ juries, civil society organisations and research scientists in the field of nanotoxicology, has been acknowledged by the UK government and was most recently outlined in strong terms by the European Union’s highest expert group on toxicology (SCENIHR [2]).
In response to these concerns, DEFRA has embarked on a totally inappropriate course of inaction that turns the precautionary principle, to which the government is committed [3] , on its head. DEFRA regularly acknowledges the potential hazards of nanomaterials yet argues that until the risks are better characterized they cannot write the rules to restrict these products. It is proposing a voluntary notification scheme for ‘engineered nanoscale materials’ to gather data on nanotechnology hazards. The effect of this is to delay regulatory action whilst giving nanotechnology companies a green light to continue introducing nanomaterials into consumer products untested, unregulated and unlabelled. This falls far short of the precautionary action that is absolutely and urgently required to deal with this new technology. This is highly irresponsible and can be expected to raise significant public concern.
Specific problems with Defra’s scheme are:
It is voluntary
Companies can choose whether or not to submit details of their products and which data to submit. Companies are unlikely to submit information that is not in their commercial interest, such as revealing potential safety problems with their products or the technology as a whole. Thus, the conclusions will be partial and misleading, an unreliable base for developing policy.
The results are not publicly accessible
We fully support the RS/RAEng’s recommendation (recommendation 12.3) that consumer products containing nanoparticles should be labelled. This most urgently applies to nano-products in the food chain and in health and beauty products that can directly affect health. A compulsory notification scheme combined with an accessible public register could at least provide the public with a means of finding out where, by whom and in which products nanomaterials are being used and enable them to exercise choice. However, DEFRA is proposing to keep the contents of the voluntary database as internal information in order to protect commercial confidentiality. Members of the public would be required to file Freedom of Information requests each time they consider a new product, to find out if they would be consuming or putting nanoparticles on their skin. This is an impractical and totally unreasonable barrier.
It lacks urgency
This is too little, too slow, too late. The government has had plenty of time to move to a mandatory notification scheme and full regulatory control. Instead, two years after the publication of the RS/RAEng report, this voluntary proposal contains no clear commitment or timeline for introducing nanotechnology regulation. By the time of the first environmental releases of genetically modified organisms there was already a full regulatory risk assessment procedure in place and still there was public concern. This time around, with over a hundred nanotechnology products already being sold in the UK, DEFRA is visibly dawdling on the way to the statute book.
It establishes the wrong relationship with Industry
This scheme depends on closer co-operation between the nanotechnology industry and regulators. Rather than exercising oversight in the public interest, DEFRA has drawn up the current proposals in collaboration with industry and is meekly asking for favours in the form of voluntary scraps of data. This is an inappropriate relationship between a potentially polluting and dangerous industry and its regulator. The government is prioritising the economic well being of the nanotechnology industry above the safety of the public and environment.
It is too narrow
The voluntary notification scheme is only concerned with the safety aspects of certain nanomaterials. It excludes consideration of other areas of nanotechnology, for example, nanobiotechnology and of the emerging area of synthetic biology [4]. There is also no scope within the proposal to consider issues beyond toxicity, for example the wider social, economic, democratic, cultural, global and human rights impacts of nanotechnology.
We ask that the government scrap the current plans for a voluntary notification scheme and introduce more robust and comprehensive proposals that should include:
• A review of the level of scientific uncertainty and the ability to reliably assess the safety of existing products using the recent SCENIHR report as a starting point.
• Comprehensive well funded research into the health and environmental risks and other potential impacts posed by nanomaterials. This should include human and environmental risk assessment that relies on sound scientific principles not dependent on animal tests
• Mandatory reporting, safety assessment, emissions minimisation, labelling and liability for new and existing nanomaterials.
• Any approval procedure for nanomaterials should be time limited, and a post-market monitoring plan should be implemented to gather data on their impacts.
• Government plans should be adopted to evaluate and address the wider impacts of the new and especially proprietary nanotechnologies beyond nanosafety questions (particularly the impact on trade, livelihoods human rights and justice).
Such proposals should have a date for implementation spelled out in months not years.
Until and unless there is a robust body of scientific knowledge on the health and environmental impacts, a moratorium should be put in place on the commercial and environmental release of engineered nanomaterials, particularly free-engineered nanoparticles. This is particularly urgent for products intended for consumption, application to the skin or release to the environment.
Tony Juniper - Director, Friends of the Earth (England, Wales and Northern Ireland
Dr Doug Parr - Chief Scientist, Greenpeace UK
Peter Melchett - Policy Director, Soil Association
Andrew Scott - Director of Policy and Programmes, Practical Action
Pat Mooney - Executive Director, ETC Group
Dr Andre Menache - Scientific Consultant, Animal Aid
Olaf Bayer – Researcher, Corporate Watch
Rory O’Neill - Health, Safety and Environment Officer, International Federation of Journalists
references
1. Nanoscience and nanotechnologies: opportunities and uncertainties
http://www.nanotec.org.uk/finalReport.htm 2. Scientific Committee On Emerging And Newly Identified Health Risks
http://ec.europa.eu/health/ph_risk/committees/04_scenihr/docs/scenihr_o_003b.pdf 3.
http://www.hse.gov.uk/aboutus/meetings/ilgra/pppa.htm#3 ‘Where there are threats of serious or irreversible environmental damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.’
1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development
4. Background document on synthetic biology
http://www.etcgroup.org/article.asp?newsid=563
nano geek