By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton On April 5, 2023, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a report on the food safety aspects of cell-based food, which is animal agricultural products grown directly from cell cultures. FAO, in collaboration with WHO, developed the report to engage with respective members and relevant stakeholders “by proactively sharing the current knowledge to identify concrete...
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May 13, 2020
WHO Publishes Principles and Methods to Assess Risk of Immunotoxicity Associated with Exposure to Nanomaterials
On April 12, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) published Environmental Health Criteria 244: Principles and methods to assess the risk of immunotoxicity associated with exposure to nanomaterials. WHO states that the document presents an overview of the current knowledge and evidence on principles and basic mechanisms of immunotoxicity caused by engineered nanomaterials (ENM). The document provides guidance on principles and methods for hazard and risk assessment of...
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) published a Federal Register notice on April 24, 2018, announcing the availability of a draft research plan entitled Continuing to Protect the Nanotechnology Workforce: NIOSH Nanotechnology Research Plan for 2018-2025 for public comment. The draft Nanotechnology Research Plan presents the Nanotechnology Research Center (NTRC) strategic plan for fiscal years (FY) 2018-2025, highlighting how the...
December 29, 2017
NIOSH Plans to Support Implementation of WHO Guidelines to Protect Workers from Nanomaterials
On December 15, 2017, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) posted a blog item entitled “WHO Guidelines to Protect Workers from Nanomaterials.” As reported in our December 13, 2017, blog item, the World Health Organization (WHO) recently published WHO Guidelines on Protecting Workers from Potential Risks of Manufactured Nanomaterials. NIOSH Director John Howard, MD, describes the WHO Guidelines as “an important step in protecting workers worldwide from the...
December 13, 2017
WHO Publishes Guidelines on Protecting Workers from Potential Risks of Manufactured Nanomaterials
In December 2017, the World Health Organization (WHO) published WHO Guidelines on Protecting Workers from Potential Risks of Manufactured Nanomaterials. WHO developed the Guidelines, which provide recommendations on how best to protect workers from the potential risks of manufactured nanomaterials (MNM). According to WHO, its recommendations are intended to help policy-makers and professionals in the field of occupational health and safety in making decisions about the best...
June 20, 2017
WHO Seeks Comment on Draft Document Concerning Assessing the Risk of Immunotoxicity Associated with Exposure to Nanomaterials
The World Health Organization’s (WHO) International Program on Chemical Safety (IPCS) published a draft Environmental Health Criteria (EHC) Document, Principles and Methods to Assess the Risk of Immunotoxicity Associated with Exposure to Nanomaterials. According to IPCS, the target audience is risk assessors in a regulatory setting, researchers, and industry that needs to provide the data for assessment. The draft EHC Document states that recent reports have identified...
June 15, 2016
Presentations Available from International Symposium on Asbestos-Like Fibers from Nanomaterials and Other Advanced Materials
On June 14, 2016, Germany’s Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA) posted the presentations from the April 20, 2016, symposium, “WHO fibres from nanomaterials and other advanced materials: Do we have to tackle a new asbestos problem in OSH?” The goal was to initiate a transdisciplinary debate among representatives from academia, regulatory agencies, industry, and other interested parties in the governance landscape on advanced materials. It was also...
On May 10, 2016, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) issued guidelines on highly hazardous pesticides (HHP) (Guidelines) as part of the International Code of Conduct on Pesticide Management (Code of Conduct). HHPs are defined in the Guidelines as “pesticides that are acknowledged to present particularly high levels of acute or chronic hazards to health or environment according to internationally accepted...
On March 20, 2015, the United Nations World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) announced it had completed evaluations assessing the carcinogenicity of five organophosphate pesticides. Specifically, IARC classified the herbicide glyphosate and the insecticides malathion and diazinon as probably carcinogenic to humans (Group 2A), and classified the insecticides tetrachlorvinphos and parathion as possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group 2B)....
July 3, 2012
FAO/WHO Release Draft Paper on Risk Assessment and Risk Management of Nanotechnologies for Comment
The United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Health Organization (WHO) have released a draft paper entitled State of the art on the initiatives and activities relevant to risk assessment and risk management of nanotechnologies in the food and agriculture sectors for comment. FAO and WHO commissioned the paper with the objective of summarizing and analyzing the information that has become available since their 2009 expert meeting and determining possible courses...