U.K. Responds to Nanotech Report

INTERNATIONAL

The British government and the U.K.'s leading scientific academies are firing reports at each other, but critics from environmental groups charge that they are failing to arrive at a system for regulating nanomaterials.

Nonetheless, Britain's minister of science and innovation, David Lord Sainsbury, insists that the U.K. wants to be a world leader in this area of science as well as influence internationally any new regulatory system.

Sainsbury's position became clear during his remarks at the opening of a nanotechnology exhibit in the Science Museum of London on Feb. 25. The government's responsibility is "to make certain that the regulation of new developments is considered at an early stage, that the public is involved in the process, and that any necessary changes to the regulatory system are made," he said. To do so, the U.K. government will review current regulations as they might relate to nanotechnology and set up a cross-government group to coordinate research to underpin safety assessments.

Sainsbury's plans, however, do not include any new research funding. His comments were, in part, a response to a joint report analyzing opportunities and uncertainties in nanotechnology issued last July by the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering. In that report, the two academies said that nano-particles and nanotubes should be treated as new chemicals under U.K. and European legislation and recommended immediate research into the materials' potential health and environmental effects while limiting exposure to them.

"The government must commit adequate funding to improve the understanding of any potential risks to human health and the environment" from nanomaterials, the academies said in a written response to Sainsbury's comments. Ann P. Dowling, professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Cambridge and chair of the academies' nanotech working group, pointed out that "the government is taking the regulatory implications of nanotechnologies seriously and has committed to acting on our concerns."

Critics of nanotech were less conciliatory. The U.K. government has "made a significant mistake in confining its next moves to only dealing with nanotoxicology and even then failing to find extra financial support for the necessary studies," says Jim Thomas, program manager in the U.K. for environmental advocate ETC Group.

The academies, and even ETC Group, were more upbeat about the U.K. government's commitment to a public dialogue on the direction of nanotech R&D and possible regulation.

Industry wants to be part of this dialogue. A group of large materials and technology companies--including BASF, QinetiQ Nanomaterials, Oxonica, Syrris, and JR Nanotech--has launched the Nanotech Association to inform and promote the uses of nanotechnology.