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Science Technology

Nanotechnology: Nanoscale Particles A Health Hazard? 276

Posted by michael from the black-lung-disease dept.
securitas writes "Before you start dreaming of all the benefits nanotechnology will bring you, think about the health hazards. Over two dozen studies that date back to 1984 indicate that nanoscale materials are toxic because their size allows them to be easily ingested, inhaled or absorbed through the skin. Proponents of nanotech dismiss the meta-study as nonsense, while the authors suggest a moratorium on nanotech development until further health research is completed." The paper (726 kB PDF) that prompted this article is available.
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Nanotechnology: Nanoscale Particles A Health Hazard? More

Nanotechnology: Nanoscale Particles A Health Hazard?

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  • Cookie cutters (Score:5, Funny)

    by ilsie ( 227381 ) on Tuesday April 15, 2003 @01:17PM (#5737663)
    I would say that, on the whole, nanoparticle cookie cutters [scheib.net] sound extremely bad for your health.

  • Innerspace (Score:3, Funny)

    by The_Rippa ( 181699 ) on Tuesday April 15, 2003 @01:17PM (#5737665)
    Just ask Jack Putter [imdb.com] how dangerous nanoscale particles can be!

  • i thought (Score:2, Insightful)

    by sigep_ohio ( 115364 )
    we were suposed to inhale/ingest nano machines. thats how they get in our bodies to help us.

  • Fossils, Too. (Score:4, Informative)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) on Tuesday April 15, 2003 @01:18PM (#5737669) Homepage Journal
    Fossilized Diatoms, or Diatomaceous Earth [d-earth.co.uk] can cut your lungs to bits, like so many million tiny scythes.

    Maybe there's a future for Nanoscale Particles in home gardening and pest control, too? ;-)

    • Re:Fossils, Too. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by JonTurner ( 178845 ) on Tuesday April 15, 2003 @01:25PM (#5737739) Journal
      Ack! You beat me to the punch on the Diatom fossils.

      Don't forget Asbestos, and fiberglass. Both of these substances are extremely common, but relatively inert and harmless UNLESS dust particles are inhaled. Once in your lungs, the microscopic fibers embed themselves into your lung tissue causing scarring and, with the former lung cancer, the latter, silicon fibrosis; either of which is a terrible way to die.

      Now, imagine inhaling a microscopic machine designed to do who-knows-what! If a simple strand of glassfibre can form a deadly dust, imagine swarms of machines (along with their power supplies, etc.) chewing their way into your lungs.

      I've gotta come down on the side of the cautious on this one. Until you can control it, don't deploy it.

      • Re:Fossils, Too. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Zathrus ( 232140 ) on Tuesday April 15, 2003 @01:43PM (#5737907) Homepage
        Until you can control it, don't deploy it.

        Who said anything about deploying?

        What the article suggests is that we shouldn't even do any research on nano-scale machines until we've evaluated the alleged health risks. Which is a load of bunk.

        Think about it - if people had suggested this a couple hundred years ago then it's unlikely we would've developed electric power (yes, I know - studies on electricity date back millenia, but it wasn't until the 1800s that a vast amount of research was done on it and we started really harnessing its capabilities). Do you have any idea what happens to the human body when exposed to more than a few milliamps of electrical power?

        Do the research, figure out how to make these things work for us... it's just that health concerns are another part of the research - which is pretty much standard nowadays anyway.

        • Nanomachines! (Score:5, Interesting)

          by mmol_6453 ( 231450 ) <<short.circuit> <at> <mail.grnet.com>> on Tuesday April 15, 2003 @02:21PM (#5738252) Homepage Journal
          A couple milliamperes alone are enough to cause muscle to go into tight contraction. That spells "heart attack" if it goes through your heart.

          Having measured myself, I know I'm 2.2 megaohms from one hand to the next. I'm told that, if you puncture the skin, that goes down to only a few ohms.

          Seriously, Ben Bova wrote a couple of books on the political consequences of nanomachines. I thought that Slashdot, of all places, would have smaller percentage of nanoluddites than the general public. I mean, come on people. All technology comes with consequences. We usually accept these risks freely.

          And, think about it. The types of nanotechnology Ben Bova described as dangerous were self-replicating. But aren't bacteria self-replicating? What about chemical explosions? Nuclear reactions?

          The only types of nanomachines that are dangerous are those that perform only a minimal amount of precautions as to what specific things they can operate on.

          Also, antidotes will come a lot more easily, should a nanomachine prove to have negative effects on health, there's no reason another nanomachine can't be built to specifically destroy the first. At the point when nanomachines become really useful, they'll be capable of recognizing entire molecules based on physical structure, not just on chemical properties. Nanomachines will be able to be built to specifically recognize the structure of the target nanomachine, and so developers will be able to precisely control what nanomachines will operate on.

          Finally, I don't think people realize how difficult it will be to create a self-replicating nanomachine. It's a damned complicated process. It's not like computer viruses that can copy themselves with a hardcoded memcpy() command; self-replicating nanomachines would have to be able to build another copy of itself without using itself as a reference.

          • Translation (Score:3, Insightful)

            by FredFnord ( 635797 )
            > All technology comes with consequences. We usually accept these risks freely.

            Translation: we usually don't bother to assess these risks until we've already deployed the technology.

            > The only types of nanomachines that are dangerous are those that perform only a minimal
            > amount of precautions as to what specific things they can operate on.

            Translation: I am incapible of coming up with any possible risks from other kinds of nanomachines in 15 seconds of thought, so clearly there aren't any.

            Tran
          • Here is a link to a list and description of Ben Bova Books [futurefiction.com]
            . Although I'm not a fan of Bova, I've read his Mars and Moonwar books. I found the nanotechnology subplot quite interesting. He treats it as the double edged blade it is.
      • I've gotta come down on the side of the cautious on this one. Until you can control it, don't deploy it.

        Harumph! Harumph!

        *points* I didn't get a harumpm outta that guy!
    • I mean, do the authors of this thing ever go *outside*? Like, breathe in dust or anything like that? There are tiny particles of all sorts of things all over!

      I still can't believe that cloning is on hold because of "ethical" issues, and the thought that nanobots might be "toxic" because they're *small* makes even that look reasonable and sane.
      • I mean, do the authors of this thing ever go *outside*? Like, breathe in dust or anything like that? There are tiny particles of all sorts of things all over!

        Yes, but the mamallion respiratory system has had millions of years to evolve and adapt to the types of conditions you're referring to. Suddenly introducing thousands of new types of airborne radicals is not something the human body has been designed for.
  • I feel like there are these other things that we are inhaling all the time that have variants that are both good and bad....

    what are they called... something with a V and another with a B...

  • For those who are opposed to logging in... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Nethergoat ( 597008 ) on Tuesday April 15, 2003 @01:20PM (#5737678)
    (full article:)

    Research Shows Hazards in Tiny Particles By BARNABY J. FEDER

    A new review of research on nanoscale materials suggests that tiny particles are often toxic because of their size and are likely to pose health hazards, especially to workers making them.

    Dr. Vyvyan Howard, a pathology specialist at the University of Liverpool who examined results from 27 studies published since 1984, said that the type of material a particle is made of appears to be much less related to how hazardous it is than its size at such small scales.

    Dr. Howard said that nanoscale particles, which are made up of tens to thousands of molecules and are far smaller than human cells, are easily ingested, inhaled or absorbed through the skin.

    "I suppose that's something those working in the field would rather not hear but that's no reason not to say it," Dr. Howard said.

    Dr. Howard's conclusions are to be released today by the ETC Group, an opponent of rapid nanotechnology development that asked him to perform the research review. ETC has been advocating, among other things, that production of nanotechnology products be put on hold until more data is available on potential health impacts. The report is available at www.etcgroup.org.

    Nanoscale materials are already used in products as diverse as sun-blocking lotions, tennis balls, computer displays and paneling on cars. The range of potential applications has been expanding rapidly as researchers discover valuable and sometimes unexpected results by shrinking common materials, including extra strength and flexibility, new electrical properties and transparency.

    Nanotechnology backers and researchers in the United States and Europe have repeatedly disagreed with the kinds of conclusions reached by Dr. Howard and there is no public support in the business community for any sort of moratorium.

    "People who worry excessively underestimate the number of natural materials that size that have surrounded us for years," said Greg Blonder, a partner in the Morgenthaler venture capital firm. "It requires the usual good care but I don't see any new or unique threat."

    Nanotechnology companies said that the havoc that asbestos claims have created in industry has made businesses extremely sensitive to the health impact of new materials. Halting development to perform health studies would simply send nanotechnology development offshore, they said.

  • It's good that this study was funded by neutrals (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Vengeance ( 46019 ) on Tuesday April 15, 2003 @01:20PM (#5737683)
    It's not as if this were being put out by a group which, oh, say, was interested in opposing the rapid development of Nanotech...
    • Worse than that - I tried looking for the methods section and couldn't find it. The paper discusses a few case studies (i.e. are Carbon Nanotubes dangerous), and finds inconclusive evidence. I especially enjoyed where when explaining why researchers used a less effective but cheaper method it was because the more expensive method was like "feeding pearls to swines." Aimed at generating a public outcry, not at convincing the people knowledgeable about the science.

      Also, it wasn't pubilshed in a peer-reviewed forum - generally a good indication of poor science.

  • The file looks much smaller than 726kb.. Did I lose the other half?

  • Intelligent Nanobots (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rf0 ( 159958 ) <rghf@fsck.me.uk> on Tuesday April 15, 2003 @01:21PM (#5737702) Homepage
    This remind me of an episode of the Twilight Zone where someone was injected with clever nanobots and they actually started improving the person by putting eyes in the back of his head etc. They ended up advancing him so far that he was shunned by society and try to kill himself but found out that the nanobots would fix whatever he did

    i.e. cut his writes they would heal it straight away

    As he become good as immortal it was implied that he lived forever. Now that can't be good. Having to watch daytime TV for the next 1000 years :)

    Rus

    • ummm (Score:3, Funny)

      by tommck ( 69750 )
      i.e. cut his writes they would heal it straight away
      so, if they cut his reads would they finish the sentence for him? :-p

      T

    • That was also one of the better episodes of Futurama-Fry ate an old sandwich from a vending machine in a truck-stop bathroom. The rest of the gang shrinks down and goes inside to kill the parasites. Dr. Ziodberg comes riding in on a spermatazoa and says "You'll never guess where I've been!" In any case, I'd love to see that episode of [TZ|OL] you describe. Plus, as far as the article goes, that was also pretty much the subject of Crichton's Prey.

    • Re:Intelligent Nanobots (Score:4, Funny)

      by Plutor ( 2994 ) on Tuesday April 15, 2003 @01:37PM (#5737863) Homepage
      > cut his writes they would heal it straight away

      If they could proofread his Slashdot posts, he could very well be considered a perfect being.
      Could they prevent dupe posts, too?
    • Greg Bear also wrote a novella about this upon which I think the episode was based. It is called Blood Music and it is a very good read. I believe it won a Hugo even. It has also been recently expanded into a novel length story by Mr. Bear. I have not read the novel version yet, but would be interested in hearing what folks have to say about it.

      *Plot Spoiler Ahead*

      At the end of the novella, the nanos actually turn the guys body into a living planet on which they live. They also "colonize" other huma


    • As he become good as immortal it was implied that he lived forever.

      I think it was an episode of The Outer Limits. At the end it was implied that he died (they blew up the University lab) but his girlfriend inherited the nanobots.

  • news flash! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 15, 2003 @01:24PM (#5737728)
    inhalation of experimental compounds discovered harmful!

    Seriously, rule number one of any lab is "don't sniff that stuff" followed by "don't eat it or rub it on yourself, either." ;-)

  • What he really is saying... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by JaredOfEuropa ( 526365 ) on Tuesday April 15, 2003 @01:24PM (#5737731) Journal
    "Don't give research grants to study dangerous nanotechnology, give the grants to me and I will conduct a study into why many more health studies are required to determine the risk."

    Stop all research, bleh. Nano stuff isn't dangerous like gen-enged germs (unless you believe in the grey goo catastrophe), it is dangerous like many other fine particles, like asbestos and such. It warrants careful handling, not banning.
    • Of course it warrants careful handling and in a perfect world all the reasearch labs and companies would halt everything until they are sure that there are none negative side effects... Yeah, right like that is ever gonna happen.
      But I guess that is the price we have to pay to get rapid development inside a very special field inside science. If you look at research inside very specialiced fields inside science the last 50 or so years I think you would find out that the "pioneer time" often lacks restrictio
    • Reuters, April 15 2003 - Water and Oxygen Molecules Found to be Hazardous!

      Today, researchers at Wahoo State University found that nanoscale-sized water molecules can be extremely hazardous. "People may not realize, but water molecules are small enough to penetrate the lungs, skin, and even cell membranes," claims Dr. Phil McCracken, who performed the research. "Our work has shown that sufficient inhalation of small water molecules can even be fatal within minutes."

      Researchers at Dumas College have also

  • I don't understand (Score:3)

    by sstory ( 538486 ) on Tuesday April 15, 2003 @01:24PM (#5737732) Homepage
    Why every time something new comes out, there are people who propose halting it until the most fantastic claims are investigated. If this sort of stop-now/ask-questions-forever approach becomes law, it'll bog down all R&D for all time, and ruin the world economy simultaneously.

    • Re:I don't understand (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Psion ( 2244 )
      It's called the Precautionary Principle, and as a philosophy it requires anyone advocating a new technology to prove that it isn't dangerous. Nevermind about the logical difficulties involved in proving a negative...logic is never the forte of luddites.
      • The arguments against my point reflect a kind of new sophisticated Ludditism. Sort of like how "Intelligent Design Theory" is a new sophisticated creationism. Still worthless, but more sophisticated.
        • Sort of like how "Intelligent Design Theory" is a new sophisticated creationism. Still worthless, but more sophisticated.

          That kind of strikes me as studying your turds every day and saying today's turd is more sophisticated than yesterday's turd :D

          -
    • Why every time something new comes out, there are people who propose halting it until the most fantastic claims are investigated. If this sort of stop-now/ask-questions-forever approach becomes law, it'll bog down all R&D for all time, and ruin the world economy simultaneously.

      ...maybe because people with technological know-how are supremely arrogant(thinking they know all possible outcomes, have perfectly engineered something, there's no downside, it won't interact funny with something else, etc.) a

      • "DDT, Asbestos, PCBs, Nuclear ANYTHING" All those things and more are grossly insufficient reasons to halt. Over the period of time the things you mentioned were developed the overall benefits of technology far exceeded the negatives, numerous though they were. Acquiring 2500 calories took a half day's work 100 years ago. And a few minutes' work today. Rapid technological development is not without drawbacks, but they don't begin to eclipse the benefits.
    • Well, we at EvilTech(R) are working on a device that will destroy the planet and will trigger it unless the governments of the earth pay us... One Million Dollars. We believe that this transfer of funds from wasteful government spending into our research coffers will benefit the global economy. We thank the poster for his moral support.

      A straw man? Not really. Even the simplest science needs to weigh the benefits vs. the risks. As our potential for damage grows, so should our caution. And seeing some

  • Just as with biologics (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Timesprout ( 579035 ) on Tuesday April 15, 2003 @01:25PM (#5737736)
    This just means that appropriate care must be taken as when dealing with other tiny organic machines such as bacteria and viruses.

  • The Diamond Age revisited (Score:5, Interesting)

    by maya ( 90492 ) on Tuesday April 15, 2003 @01:25PM (#5737745) Homepage
    In Neil Stephenson's great nanotech novel The Diamond Age, the diseases caused by the spread of nano-agents in the atmosphere caused a major public health problem, with a widespread epidemic of life-threatening asthma caused by inhalation of the agents.

    • In most of Dickens work, the author portrayed the negative health effects of spewing bucky balls and other carbon compounds, (aka soot, cinders, smoke) into the air. You should see what the cats leave.

  • DA Skinner has problems with nanotechnology (Score:3, Funny)

    by jorlando ( 145683 ) on Tuesday April 15, 2003 @01:25PM (#5737748)
    just ask Scully and Mulder... the Kryczek guy is the culprit!

  • Just look at what all the nano-nicotine and nano-tar they put in cigarettes does to people.

  • Ha! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rabtech ( 223758 ) on Tuesday April 15, 2003 @01:27PM (#5737763) Homepage
    Since when have we EVER stopped research in a scientific field to check out health concerns first?

    Give me a break...

    For the record, I think we need to have a clear understanding of the basics in any specific field before we can even think about doing research on environmental and health issues. Imagine trying to determine the effect of internal combustion engine on the environment before you've actually built one. Kinda hard, no?

  • Logically, it makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)

    by samurairas ( 666175 ) on Tuesday April 15, 2003 @01:28PM (#5737768)
    Look, merely because all of the potential positive effects of nanotechnology are being extolled by supporters doesn't mean that micro scale objects pose no health threats. Considering the emphasis that the EPA and environmental organizations are putting on the health hazards of particulate matter, it's a good idea to examine the potential problems here. Some might argue that nanotech particles would be too small to pose a significant threat, but something that small could easily work it's way into structures in the human body previously accessible only by other types of cells. I don't know about you, but I shudder to think of the potential damage that could be done to the air sacs in lungs just from breathing in "clouds" of these structures, even if benign. I'm not saying that nanotech is bad; just that thinking of it as totally benign is foolish.

    • Re:Logically, it makes sense (Score:5, Interesting)

      by JaredOfEuropa ( 526365 ) on Tuesday April 15, 2003 @01:43PM (#5737913) Journal
      There's some middle ground between "thinking it's totally benign", and "halting all development until exhaustive health studies are conducted". An overblown reaction like that makes the guy sound either like a luddite or someone after a healthy grant.

      Bedrock times, 2003AD. Again, plans to develop a promising invention called "the wheel" are suspended pending investigation into health risks. Opponents point out that we cannot take the slightest risk, lest we suffer another disaster like that "fire" invention which destroyed an entire wheat field and badly burnt Zog's hand."
    • Everyone involved knows it poses health threats. Everyone has known that particles cause breathing problems ever since shortly after the industrial revolution filled the air with them. This is not news.

      But guess what, the researchers who work with this stuff take steps to avoid exposure to them. This "researcher" makes it sound like scientists do crazy stuff after hours: "Dude! Guess what! Today I invented some crazy shit to coat glass with that makes it clean itself!" "Sweet! I'll go grab my wife an
  • I wonder if they included this book [harpercollins.com] in the meta-study...

  • Throwback (Score:5, Interesting)

    by limekiller4 ( 451497 ) on Tuesday April 15, 2003 @01:36PM (#5737852) Homepage
    Most anti-perspirants, afaik, work by clogging the pores with zinc. So this is a fairly straightforward premise. If you have something, anything, that is small enough to be taken in directly through the skin, it's a problem.

    People pooh-poohing this study reeks of similiarty with the cigarette industry of the 50's.

    • Re:Throwback (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Frater 219 ( 1455 )

      Most anti-perspirants, afaik, work by clogging the pores with zinc.

      Not according to this article [howstuffworks.com] by the folks at HowStuffWorks.com. The active ingredient is not zinc but rather aluminum compounds, which stimulate skin cells to absorb water and thus close the sweat pores. Basically it is a trick of osmosis, and closes rather than clogs the pores.

      Zinc compounds tend to be pretty caustic stuff, but they are used in some dermatological treatments. One is dandruff shampoo. However, antiperspirant is no

  • Dont need to be that small for health effects (Score:3, Insightful)

    by farmerj ( 566229 ) on Tuesday April 15, 2003 @01:36PM (#5737854)
    Particles smaller than 10 mm in diameter can be inhaled , and particals smaller than 2.5 mm in diameter can be inhaled into the lungs. Ultra Fine Particles (UFP) are smaller than 0.1 mm in diameter and they have been linked with respiratory problems such as asthma.

    The fine particals are the main problem with diesel engines.
  • I looked at the paper link [etcgroup.org], and the first-page graphic is someone in a lab coat looking through a microscope, casting a shadow of an ostrich in the fabled "head-in-sand" pose. The rest of it is written not much above that level.

    In short, it's not a scholarly work, it's a scare piece pandering to an ignorant (and largely scientifically illiterate) public. What's really pathetic is that the NYTimes gave these idiots any press. Blank newsprint would have greater potential for education.... At least it does ha

  • Benefits outweigh the risks (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dukeofshadows ( 607689 ) on Tuesday April 15, 2003 @01:40PM (#5737881) Journal
    Nanotechnology is key to the development of 21st century industry much as the transistor was to the latte rhalf of the 20th century. According to the paper, BASF is working on a toothpaste that has enamel built into it. Those worrying about having hydroxyapetite crystals enter the body don't seem to worry about the mercury in fillings potentially causing Minamata (methyl mercury ==> degenerative brain) disease. Nanocrystals are already being employed for medical research, one lab at Vanderbilt is already exploring their potential use as a tracking system for neurological tumors and disease since they can circumvent the blood-brain barrier.

    New polymers and materials are also unlikely to enter commercial use if they disintegrate so quickly that inhaling notable quantities becomes a problem. If they're flaking off in the air they'd as likely disintegrate on cantact with water. Buckyballs could be a potential health threat but does that stop people from trying to build star ladders / space elevators out of their derivative materials? Of course not. Look at the benefits from material science over the last decade just using alloys derived from Cold War technology of the 60s, 70s, and 80s. We stand at the threshold of potential miracles in medicine (implants that don't get rejected), computing (micronized computers...imagine if today's Game Boy became tommorow's ENIAC), and many other fields.

    Of course there will be toxic derivatives of some new materials, after all LSD was discovered by people looking for cold medicines and heroin was discovered when Bayer wanted a more potent pain reliever than morphine. Care should be taken not to let certain materials into the environment, but that can be done by covered, sealed hoods with gloves or mabe this is an incentive to develop better filtering systems (could work against biochem agents too...). Keep the research going and just remember to apply common sense when working with dangerous chemicals.
  • True, it would be easy to ingest (or otherwise innoculate yourself with) nanothings. However, the one saving grace could be that they wouldn't neccesarily self-replicate. So, however little you ingest is "all" you need to worry about. If a few nanowidets "escaped" from the lab and infected someone in the general population, there shouldn't be as urgent of a threat of it spreading, unlike viruses or bacteria.

    Of course, the threat that makes me shudder is the idea of weaponizing nanotech. Although it would
  • Didn't we discuss this in the realm of, oh, say, clothing armor just recently? about what happens if the microscopic particles designed to kill bacteria and germs come loose?? Oh, right, it was HERE, under the heading, "Clothes that Kill." [slashdot.org]

    And while we're on the subject, yes. Lots of things can kill you. We live in a world where just about everything that walks, crawls, swims, breathes, slithers, or has been made by man can finish you off. However, there are known toxic limits for most of these things.

    • I'm too lazy to search for it, but recently there was an article on /. about scotchguard and how the particles never decompose and there are trace amounts of scotchguard in all Americans. We could be killing our great-great-grandkids with nanostuff.
  • It has not been conclusively proven that reading PDFs is safe and effective! So until studies prove it's 100% harmless, you should do nothing!
  • This has also been reported at the American Chemical Society Meeting in New Orleans. See the report

    Service, RF. "Nanomaterials show signs of toxicity." Science [yes, _Science_] April 11, 2003: 243.

    Groups from Johnson Space Center and DuPont report that single-walled carbon nanotubes cause scarring in mouse lungs.

  • You can't exactly test the health hazards of something that you haven't invented yet... sheesh.

    • Yes you can because nanoscale objects are not waiting for we humans to invent. They already exist. Nanoscale pollutants produced by internal combustion in semis, autos, and power plants are known harmful pollutants. They include carbon-sulphur compounds, buckyballs, buckytubes, etc.

      Technically, a virus is a nanoscale object and inhaling the wrong type of that class of object is also hazardous. This doesn't mean that nanotech research should stop, but it does mean that before anything made intentionall

  • Doomed to repeat history? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SuperBanana ( 662181 ) on Tuesday April 15, 2003 @01:56PM (#5738027)
    Proponents of nanotech dismiss the meta-study as nonsense

    "DDT is perfectly safe"(films in the '50s show kids, sitting at picnic tables, getting fogged with DDT, grinning ear to ear. DDT is later shown to cause all manner of health problems)

    "PCBs won't cause widescale pollution" (PCBs found to migrate in wildlife half-way across the globe from a single source)

    "Nuclear power is completely safe."(3-mile island, Chernobyl, and countless accidents of one kind or another at US facilities, not to mention millions of tons of deadly radioactive waste that we still haven't figured out what to do with. Don't even get me started on the secretive testing they did on mental institution patients.)

    "MBTE is a great way to meet emissions goals!"(too bad it pollutes the water table faster than you can say 'aquifer', and is a known carcinogen. Next time you fill up, look for that nice little "this gas may contain MTBE" sticker. Do a search on "MTBE health hazards" on google some time. That electric car looking better all of the sudden?)

    "Asbestos is a great material to use in brake pads, clutches, fire curtains in theaters, insultation on pipes..." (asbestos is now 100% proven to cause lung cancer)

    "Lobotomies are a great way to cure mental illness"

    Oh, and the greatest of them all, "Cigarettes don't cause cancer." Let's throw in alcohol, too, since both are poisons(and, as a whole, people can't seem to handle alcohol responsibly- I'd be surprised if the death count from alcohol-related deaths isn't higher than cigarettes.)

    That's just a small sampling of some of the gems that have come from both the scientific community and industry, often both. Why should we trust them now? These days, you should be forced to prove your product is safe, since time after time scientists and industry have proven themselves incapable of putting safety in front of "progress" and financial interests.

    • "DDT is perfectly safe"

      It was specifically said that it was safe to *spray people* with an insecticide, or just that food sprayed with it is safe to eat?

      "PCBs won't cause widescale pollution"

      But in what kind of quantities? There's probably water that I've pissed at one point or another in the US over in Mongolia...but not a lot of it.

      "Nuclear power is completely safe."

      Umm...on this one I can safely say you're full of shit. People were *petrified* of nuclear power for the longest time, and the da
  • of course we won't have to worry about the health risks of nanotech -- because we'll all have little nanotech robots in our bloodstream cleaning up all the nanotech particles they and other nanotech devices with leave behind....

    yeah, that's the world I want to live in...

  • Well, DUH! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Rorschach1 ( 174480 ) on Tuesday April 15, 2003 @02:03PM (#5738075) Homepage
    Inhaling sharp-edged little particles has never been good for your health. Doesn't matter if they're manufactured or not. Take silicosis, for example.

    We've got a huge diatomaceous earth plant in the next town over, and even though it's amorphous silica, I've heard you can still get some lung problems from breathing a lot of it for long enough.

  • The health concerns of nanoscale particles are not at all new; most dangerous or theraputic compounds are in that range, with some being a bit smaller. Things that are larger only tend to affect health in a mechanical sense (getting hit with them at high speeds is bad). Nanotechnology interacts with the body like chemicals do, and therefore needs to be studied in the same ways for evaluating health risks. But health testing of chemicals isn't at all new.
  • "Dr. Howard's conclusions are to be released today by the ETC Group, an opponent of rapid nanotechnology development that asked him to perform the research review."

    From the ETC Group website:
    "ETC group is dedicated to the conservation and sustainable advancement of cultural and ecological diversity and human rights. To this end, ETC group supports socially responsible developments of technologies useful to the poor and marginalized and it addresses international governance issues and corporate power."
    (

  • What about nanobots that repair the damage? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tempestdata ( 457317 ) on Tuesday April 15, 2003 @02:24PM (#5738272)
    This problem of inhaled nanobots causing health problems was talked about in Neil Stephenson's book "The Diamond Age". In the same book, Neil Stephenson also mentioned armies of nanobots going in to kill harmful nanobots leading to a black soot like dust being created from all these dead nanobots, that shouldn't be inhaled.

    On the other end of things, Ben Bova, in his book "Moonwar" describes certain humans having injected armies of nanobots into their body that would repair damage and fix problems.

    Now if we were able to build "human repair nanobots" and everyone used them, wouldn't these repair nanobots cancel out the harmful effects of nanobots that shouldn't be in your body?

    basically, use nanobots to fight nanobots, or defend against nanobots. I know that defense is usually used to mean fighting off a malicious aggressor, but its not neccessary.
  • This paper appears to have been published on the ETC group's own imprint, and not subjected to peer review. Take it with a grain of salt.
  • Somewhat related to this topic, there have been studies done about the dangers of fine particle air pollution. Most fine particles are formed when emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides react with ammonia to form particles less than 2.5 microns in diameter, which interfere with the ability of the lungs to absorb oxygen.

    This can lead to heart disease, lung cancer, respiratory ailments, and premature death. I'm paraphrasing from some reports found here. [abtassoc.com]
  • Seriously, people are so concerned about health risks in EVERYTHING... nanoparticles are everywhere, all around us.. constantly.. why are we caring about them NOW.. we survived for thousands of years. What ever happened to natural selection? Oh that's right.. we put warning labels on everything in existance because some moron doesn't know that PreparationH is external only. Geez.. just take the warning labels off of everything and let the problem work itself out.
  • Once nanotech gets movin, there will be people who made their fortunes in it. Any change like that is fundamental and people oppose it.

    But of course it poses a health risk. DUH. Most any technology capable of curing diseases could more easily applied to destruction.
  • Going to ban heavy trucks? Their exhaust is loaded with microparticulates. Living in a modern society has risks, what's the news there? Living in the woods has worse risks. That's the price of advancement.

    Google search on diesel particulate and cancer [google.ca].

  • Dupe (Score:2)

    by bckspc ( 172870 )
    This was already posted [slashdot.org].

  • Nanotechnology companies said that the havoc that asbestos claims have created in industry has made businesses extremely sensitive to the health impact of new materials. Halting development to perform health studies would simply send nanotechnology development offshore, they said.

    What asbestos claims have done is make industry extremely sensitive to the health impacts on industry of not being protected from lawsuits. They can avoid these lawsuits two ways, (1) moving offshore, (2) legislative "relief." So

  • From someone in the field (Score:3, Informative)

    by Goldsmith ( 561202 ) on Tuesday April 15, 2003 @09:05PM (#5741106)
    I work in nanoscience. There is no reason to even mention nanomachines right now. What we work with is dirt. I was very glad that this article knew that.

    One of the most advanced nanotechnology fabrication techniques out there is to burn pure graphite at a high temperature quickly. Use specific gasses/temperatures/pressures to get desired nanotube characteristics.

    Yup, that's scary stuff. Ash. Dirt. I'm afraid.

    The article wasn't bad, it had it's points, but except for nanotubes, every example of nanotechnology it gave was really just saying: hey this dirt we found over here, yeah, it might not be good for us. I think that should be pretty obvious to mankind at this point. We're beyond the dirt eating stage of evolution.

    Nano-particles are things we've been dealing with since the industrial revolution. I'm not going to pretend that they're all perfectly safe, I have no idea. To treat the field any differently than chemistry, or solid state physics is crazy. People don't go around inhaling things in chemistry labs.

    I do think that we should be looking at the health hazards that might accompany nanotechnology. What I got out of the PDF was that quite a few people are doing that. That makes me warm and fuzzy inside, I feel like we are being responsible scientests and not recommending anything for mass production before we know what it does.

    The alarmist tone of the article is completely undeserved. The amount of material we work with in the lab is insignificant. The only real commercial nanotechnology product is titanium dioxide, which was developed as a SAFE replacement for lead in paint quite a while ago.

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