Jennifer Sass's Blog
Confluence of co-incidences: Asbestos and Nano
July 21, 2008
Posted by Jennifer Sass in Health and the Environment
On the very same day, Sunday 20th, two of my favorite blogs posted on events and though neither referenced each other, the overlap of interests is worth noting.
In the first blog crack investigative reporter and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Andrew Schneider blogged on Secret Ingredients about how our Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is considering weakening regulations on asbestos. That deadly fiber, possibly the most well-known of all cancer-causing agents, leaves a continuing death rate of approximately one death per hour in the United States, 10,000 deaths per year, as a legacy from past uses. Nonetheless, today the EPA Office of Solid Waste and Emergency (OSWER) is hosting a public meeting to reconsider the way it calculates risk from inhaling the deadly fibers, based on new industry calculations.
In the second blog, SafeNano, even while our regulatory agencies are putting our health and safety at risk for industry interests, another group of scientists are reminding us to learn lessons from past mistakes like asbestos. Scientists Steffen Hansen, Andrew Maynard, Anders Baun, and Joel Tickner published an article in Nature Nanotechnology called, "Late Lessons from early warnings for nanotechnology". In his blog SafeNano, Maynard notes the conflict when federal agencies are promoting industry or commercial interests: "...nanotechnology is being overseen by the same government organizations that promote it; research strategies are not leading to clear answers to critical questions; collaborations are not being as productive as is needed; and stakeholders are not being fully engaged."
The Secret Ingredients blog says, "Scientists paid by the automotive and chemical industry and miners of sand, tale, taconite and gravel contaminated with asbestos, argue that whichever type of asbestos they use "can't be harmful" because the size, shape or chemical composition of their asbestos fiber is benign. On the other side, physicians who have treated thousands of asbestos victims, and scientists who have documented the public health toll, just point to the graveyards." And now the EPA, the agency charged with protecting human and environmental health, is considering adopting the industry numbers to weaken clean up and exposure standards to asbestos. Grrrr....!
Today technical comments signed by internationally renowned medical experts and public health experts including NRDC will be presented to the EPA at the public meeting. These prominent experts will be advocating against weakening the asbetsos clean up standards because there is no safe level of exposure.
Secret Ingredients highlights a new book by David Michaels, a former assistant secretary of the Department of Energy for Environment, Safety and Health, that "documents how this bogus science is conducted on behalf of manufacturers and users of not just asbestos, but of benzene, beryllium, chromium, methyl tertiary-butyl ether, perchlorates, phthalates, and virtually every other toxic chemical in the news today."
Clearly it would be smart practice to keep commercial interests separated from regulators if agencies are to set health-protective regulations.
The ability of some nanomaterials such as carbon nanotubes to present serious and potentially chronic or deadly health effects has already been demonstrated in scientific studies that, while not definitive, are raising alarm among those paying attention. For more discussion see blogs by NRDC, EDF, or ICON.
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