Thursday, November 02, 2006
Nano-safety policy history
My sense is that clarifying health and safety issues was the single biggest motive behind the societal implications component of the NNI. But I think Patrick's right that they are getting a bigger market share of the social attention than ever before. In addition to the push from ETC and other groups that Bruce's crew is tracking, there's also the work of the Wilson Center in DC, which among other activities published three major risk reports this year. One of them, Andrew Maynard's "Nanotechnology: A Research Strategy for Addressing Risk," offers an interesting overview of the NNI's poor funding record on risk research and describes an ambitious 11-area research plan that would involve a range of agencies. I'm not sure that the answer to Patrick's question about how the agencies got involved is historical: it seems to be getting underway right now.
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This is right in a sense. The main push for/from the FDA and EPA does seem to be getting underway now. But I think it would be interesting to have access to the meetings etc. when these folks first got a seat at the table. And did this represent any sort of shift in the nature of nano...I don't recall there being much focus on nano-additives for food in the original strategy for selling the NNI to congress. Will the real nano please stand up?!
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