Last week the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) made three new publications available on their Safety of Manufactured Nanomaterials website. News items on Nanowerk offer a précis for each document.
From the news item about the results of a questionnaire about regulatory regimes that cover nanomaterials,
The current document presents the information obtained from the WPMN [Working Party on Manufactured Nanomaterials] Questionnaire on Regulatory Regimes for Manufactured Nanomaterials issued July 28, 2008. Responses received are summarized in the Tables (see Annexes). Twenty-four responses were received from nine jurisdictions for Legislations covering a wide variety of chemical substances and/or products including industrial chemicals, pesticides, fertilizers, agricultural compounds, fuels and fuel additives, food and food additives and veterinary medicines. Other Legislations reported included those covering occupational health and safety, consumer products, control of major accidents and labelling and packaging. Although a wide variety of sectors are represented in the data obtained, it is noted that responses from the industrial chemical sector were in the majority for those Legislations reporting pre-market and/or post-market registration/notification and assessment.
None of the respondents reported having legislation specific to nanomaterials, however most respondents indicated that the authority to regulate substances that are nanomaterials, or products containing nanomaterials, exists in current Legislation. [emphasis mine]
This questionnaire was filled out in 2008 and, to the best of my knowledge, the situation in Canada (one of the respondents) remains unchanged from that time. You can access the full report here although I suggest reading the item at Nanowerk first as it offers good preparation for the full report and I have had problems with downloading at least one of these reports from the OECD site and from the link provided at Nanowerk.
There’s a workshop report on risk assessment (from the news item on Nanowerk),
The workshop took place September 16th – 18th, 2009 in Washington D.C., United States, and was cohosted by the Business and Industry Advisory Committee (BIAC) and the Society for Risk Analysis. Seventy (70) participants representing OECD member countries, non-member economies, industries, academia and environmental NGOs attended.
Following general presentations and discussions, case studies on Titanium dioxide nanomaterials, Silver Nanomaterials and Carbon Nanotubes were presented. Workshop attendees then participated in one of five parallel break-out sessions to discuss specific issues of risk assessment methodology including i) Assessment Problem Formulation; ii) Exposure – Public, Occupational and Environment; iii) Hazard – Human Health; iv) Ecological Toxicity and Fate; and v) Determining Risk and Linkage between Assessment and Management.
Workshop participants concluded that the risk assessment paradigm for chemicals will continue to guide approaches to the risk assessment of nanomaterials. However, because of the limited amount of empirical data on nanomaterials, many of the assumptions and estimations employed in chemical risk assessments need to be evaluated for nanomaterials.
If I understand the last two sentences properly, this means that as products continue to enter the marketplace the old rules will apply although nanomaterials may behave in completely unexpected ways so more research is needed. (As per the last report, you can access the full report here although I suggest reading the item at Nanowerk first as it offers good preparation for the full report and I have had problems with downloading at least one of these reports from the OECD site and from the link provided at Nanowerk.)
The third member of this trio of reports is a 2009-2012 operational plan for the OECD’s nanomaterials safety programme. From the news item on Nanowerk,
The OECD programme on the safety of manufactured nanomaterials aims to ensure that the approach to hazard, exposure and risk assessment is of a high, science-based, and internationally harmonised standard.
This programme promotes international co-operation on the human health and environmental safety of manufactured nanomaterials, and involves safety testing and risk assessment of manufactured nanomaterials. This document compiles the operational plans (2009-2012) for the implementation of each project of the Working Party on Manufactured Nanomaterials (WPMN).
There are six projects,
1. OECD Database on Manufactured Nanomaterials to Inform and Analyse EHS Research Activities [led by SG1/2]…
2. Safety Testing of Representative Set of Manufactured Nanomaterials [led by SG3] – …
3. Manufactured Nanomaterials and Test Guidelines [led by SG4] – …
4. Co-operation on Voluntary Schemes and Regulatory Programmes [led by SG5] – …
5. Co-operation on Risk Assessment [led by SG6] – …
6. The Role of Alternative Test Methods in Nanotoxicology [led by SG7] – …
7. Co-operation on Exposure Measurement and Exposure Mitigation [led by SG8] – …
8. Environmentally Sustainable Use of Manufactured Nanomaterials [led by SG9] …
It seems a bit odd to me that a plan which covers 2009 to 2012 is released in 2010 as it seems to be somewhat after the fact. (As per the last report, you can access the full report here although I suggest reading the item at Nanowerk first as it offers good preparation for the full report and I have had problems with downloading at least one of these reports from the OECD site and from the link provided at Nanowerk.)