During the Helsinki Chemicals Forum 2010, Jukka Malm, European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) Assessment Director stated that ECHA is revising its Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) guidance documents to include technical instructions to help companies include nanomaterials in their registration dossiers and other compliance obligations for substances they make or import. According to Malm, ECHA is following “international developments,” particularly work...
Archives
May 12, 2010
OECD Posts Reports Concerning Nanomaterials
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) posted on May 5, 2010, two reports concerning nanomaterials:...
May 5, 2010
PPDC Discusses Nanotechnology and Pesticides
On April 29, 2010, during the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Pesticide Program Dialogue Committee (PPDC) meeting, William Jordan, Senior Policy Advisor, Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP), presented slides regarding nanotechnology and pesticides. Jordan briefly described how OPP is defining nanoscale materials and how the technology is being applied to the field of pesticides. His presentation described OPP’s recent consultation with EPA’s Scientific...
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) announced that laboratory studies, reported in a paper posted online by the journal Nature Nanotechnology on April 4, 2010, discovered that carbon nanotubes were biodegraded by an enzyme found in white blood cells, neutrophils. According to NIOSH, the researchers demonstrated that, unlike carbon nanotubes that were not biodegraded in this way, the biodegraded nanotubes did not cause inflammation in the lungs of mice. NIOSH...
April 13, 2010
New OSTP Group Will Address Nanotechnology Issues
During the National Nanotechnology Initiative’s (NNI) March 30-31, 2010, conference regarding “Risk Management Methods & Ethical, Legal, and Societal Implications of Nanotechnology,” Tom Kalil, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), announced that the OSTP would create a new interagency group on emerging technologies, including nanotechnology. Kalil’s announcement is reported in an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) policy alert, which...
March 23, 2010
UK Publishes Nanotechnology Strategy
On March 18, 2010, the United Kingdom (UK) Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) announced publication of UK Nanotechnologies Strategy: Small Technologies, Great Opportunities, which sets out how the government intends to take action to ensure that everyone safely benefits from the societal and economic opportunities that these technologies offer, while addressing the challenges that they might present. The Strategy includes the following key actions:...
On March 4, 2010, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Design for the Environment (DfE) Program announced a partnership led by the DfE Program and Office of Research and Development (ORD). The partnership is conducting a screening-level life-cycle assessment of currently manufactured lithium-ion battery technologies and a next generation battery component that uses single-wall carbon nanotube technology. According to the DfE Program, the partnership offers the opportunity to...
January 28, 2010
NIOSH Announces Articles Addressing Nanomaterial Exposure Issues
On January 19, 2010, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) announced three new peer-reviewed articles co-authored by NIOSH researchers. According to NIOSH, the articles report findings and conclusions from studies that examined issues related to potential occupational exposure to engineered nanomaterials. Two articles in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene report on the design and application of the nanomaterial emission assessment technique,...
December 18, 2009
NIOSH Announces Conference on Nanomaterials and Worker Health
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) announced that it will hold a conference entitled “Nanomaterials and Worker Health: Medical Surveillance, Exposure Registries, and Epidemiologic Research,” on July 21-23, 2010, at the Keystone Resort and Conference Center in Keystone, Colorado. According to NIOSH, the goal of the conference is to identify gaps in information and address questions focusing on occupational health surveillance, exposure registries, and...
September 25, 2009
PEN Holds Meeting on Transatlantic Regulatory Cooperation
On September 23, 2009, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Project on Emerging Technologies (PEN) hosted a meeting on “Transatlantic Regulatory Cooperation: Securing the Promise of Nanotechnologies.” The program is part of a collaborative research project involving experts from the London School of Economics (LSE), Chatham House, the Environmental Law Institute (ELI), and PEN. The project is funded by a grant from the European Commission to support pilot...