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By Bart Mongoven
Researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Aug. 16 released a study stating that the production of carbon nanotubes gives rise to the creation of a slew of dangerous chemicals known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, including some that are toxic.
Discussion of a new regulatory regime for nanotechnology has been ongoing among think tanks, advocacy groups and industry for years, and findings that suggest the sector could generate public health risks will add to the growing pressure on regulators or legislators to decide how to regulate it.
The debate over the regulation of nanotechnology has taken place on two levels. The first is over the public health risks nanotechnology poses and ways to determine and measure those risks. This is mainly the familiar risk-assessment process applied to the products of a technology that acts slightly differently than previous technologies do.
At the center of a second debate over public policies governing nanotechnology is an older, more contentious issue: the politicization of science and technology. At issue is the point at which government is justified in stepping into the realm of science to stop or slow scientific research, regardless of whether harm has been done. This concern lay at the center of the early debate over biotechnology, and also played a role in the debate over federal funding of stem cells and bans on human cloning.
A number of efforts are currently under way to determine the answers to the first question. The most impressive of these efforts are occurring in a number of partnerships between corporations and advocacy groups or think tanks. By contrast, the debate over the second question is largely being ignored. Where it is taking place, the discussion is occurring by implication.
What ultimately happens with the risk-centered regulatory debate will impact this larger philosophical debate, and will be crucial to the rules governing the coming wave of new technologies. This new wave will include even more controversial issues, including human cloning and synthetic forms of life. These issues will challenge the public to accommodate technological progress in their world views.
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology was defined by one of its founders, Nobel Prize winner Rick Smalley, as “the art and the science of building stuff that does stuff on a nanometer scale.” Essentially, nanotechnology is the manipulation of atoms and small molecules at a level that is slightly different from chemistry. While nanoparticles generally behave like traditional chemicals do, in some cases they can be very different. In these slight differences lies the technology’s promise — namely, what is possible through chemistry has been studied for centuries, while nanotechnology mostly remains an open field. Still, as one observer has put it, to say that we should regulate nanotechnology is the equivalent of saying we should regulate a hammer — nanotechnology is a tool, and its creations will emerge as the subject of regulatory debate.
Nanotechnology is currently used in commercial applications, most famously sunscreens and stain-resistant pants. The next five years will see a boom in the use of nanotechnology in applications ranging from greatly improved batteries to stronger, lighter materials to improved military weapons. At the base of nanotechnology are some prevalent building blocks, most importantly carbon nanotubes, fullerenes and buckminsterfullerenes or “buckyballs.” (Fullerenes and buckyballs were named after Buckminster Fuller, considered the godfather of nanotechnology, because their shape is similar to his geodesic dome.)
The major players in nanotechnology include all of the large research-based chemistry companies, including DuPont, Dow Chemical Co., Corning Inc., General Electric Co. and a number of smaller research companies that cluster around universities in the Northeastern United States. The way these companies currently use nanotechnology has given rise to the first set of regulatory concerns surrounding nanotech. The questions raised by this use will be answered by rules regarding what these manufacturers must guard against in production, use and disposal of nanotechnologies. In June, DuPont and the environmental group Environmental Defense provided a preview of the likely framework for nanotechnology regulation.
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