More sabre rattling from the the European Parliament who passed a “non binding opinion” with 391 votes in favour and three against, demanding that all nanomaterials should be considered as new substances, and that existing legislation does not take into account the risks associated with nanotechnology.They also demanded that consumer products containing nanomaterials must be labelled ‘nano’.
It’s a repeat of the techniques used by anti technology lobbies and is a very effective strategy that goes something like this:
- Find some evidence that something is dangerous – note that it doesn’t matter if 99.99% of research shows no dangers, parliamentarians are not scientists and it’s unlikely that they will ever check
- Find a few more scientific papers and deliberately misinterpret them in order to back up your agenda
- Use this ‘scientific evidence’ to ‘prove’ that the technology is dangerous – if it turns out you were wrong just ignore any evidence to the contrary and stick to your story
- Once you have sown the idea that a technology is dangerous, call for labelling in an attempt to use public ignorance of science to keep products off the market.
The flaw in this argument is that it only works for things that people might eat or drink, so sticking a “contains nanotech” label on a mobile phone or solar panel won’t have any impact. I sometimes wonder whether groups who try to confuse nanotechnology with GMOs are deliberately trying to confuse the issues to spread fear, or whether they are simply too stupid to tell the difference between various bits of science and spend all day trying to connect their washing machines to the Internet while trying to make phone calls with a plastic chair.
Comments 1
Hi Tim,
The strategy you describe may well characterise the approach of some people, parliamentarians or otherwise. But I just don’t think it is a fair assessment of the report adopted by the European Parliament, or of the approach being taken to nanotech in government generally.
Recently updated EU novel food and cosmetics regulations already mean nano ingredients will in future have to be explicitly labelled ‘(nano)’ on product packaging. It’s worth noting that obligatory labelling of GM-containing food has not caused problems for those selling the stuff, albeit there is not much on sale in Europe (http://www.kcl.ac.uk/consumerchoice).
The report from MEPs you mention says that as well as the novel food and cosmetics regulations, all other relevant legislation should be updated to address nanotechnology explicitly where appropriate. The Commission is already working on nano in REACH, so this is not as revolutionary as it sounds.
You also imply that concerns over nanotech safety are illusory. I’m sure we could agree that a lot of nanotech really is safe, but there’s no need to throw the baby out with the bath water. There are genuine concerns about certain materials such as nano-Ag and HARNs that keep getting flagged up – by the RCEP and most recently in the Emergnano report for DEFRA. Surely it is sensible and beneficial for all, including nanotech industries, to tread carefully here.
Quite likely embedded nanotubes will not be a big problem. But nano silver in socks seems like a stupid – and pointless – idea. Whether nano silver is more problematic for the aquatic environment than non-nano is interesting but not necessarily important. I’m not saying we should stick our heads in the sand and deny technological progress – I completely agreed with your recent post on the futility of luddism. But lumping together legitiamte concerns on certain nanomaterials with the frequently ideological objections to GM/’technology’ in general is not helpful either.
keep up with the interesting and stimulating blog!
simon