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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Jennifer Sass, Natural Resources Defense Council, 1200 New York Ave., NW, Suite 400, Washington, DC 20005, 202-289-2362, jsass@nrdc.org

Despite the potential of engineered nanomaterials to advance cleaner, safer technology, emerging data indicates serious potential for harm to the brain, pulmonary, cardiovascular, and immune systems. Despite these early warnings government response has been woefully inadequate. The private sector response has been mixed. Some corporations seem concerned only about the public perception of health risks. Fearing actual or perceived risks, some insurance and investment companies have called for safety testing and regulatory oversight. Other large corporations and many small start-ups may welcome safety testing and reasonable regulations. In response to the lack of ready-made regulations, the EPA is developing a voluntary program to gather risk information. While this program would hopefully fill a gap in the absence of real regulations, it only captures companies that volunteer to participate, and only those products that companies choose to disclose. An array of good stewardship approaches to nanotechnology development would increase public confidence and market stability. Such measures include: immediate action to prevent uses of nanomaterials that may result in human exposures or environmental releases, unless safety can be demonstrated beforehand; increased safety testing conducted by independent or government laboratories subject to “sunshine laws”; labeling consumer products; full life-cycle assessments.

Learning Objectives:

1.Overview of health risk of nanotechnologies.
• Concerns of the proposed federal voluntary health and environmental regulatory system for nanotechnology.
• Private sector response to the voluntary systems and potential health risk of emerging technology.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation