In a number of posts at this blog, both the positive and the potentially harmful impact that nanotechnology can have on health have been mentioned. The whitepaper on environmentally responsible development of nanotechnology focuses on this duality of benefits and dangers of nanotechnology. It contains the recommendations from the Research Triangle Environmental Health Collaborative and represents a collection of opinions.
The impact of nanotechnology is understood by most countries. In the U.S., for example, $14 billion had been set apart for R&D under the Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI). The NNI is a U.S. government program of “25 agencies working together toward the common vision of a future in which the ability to understand and control matter at the nanoscale leads to a revolution in technology and industry that benefits society.”
Russia has been focusing on developing tools that enable working with materials at nanoscale, something extremely difficult considering that a nanometer is one-billionth of a meter.
As the whitepaper says, when materials at this size scale are released into the environment, they can penetrate traditional biological barriers (like the human skin) and the so far “impermeable” synthetic filters. The result can be unhealthy for humans, animals and the ecology.
As at the time of this writing, the whitepaper can be downloaded from EnvironmentalHealthCollaborative.org.
