Court Orders Reevaluation Of Nanosilver Product

A Nov. 7 court ruling vacated EPA’s approval of HeiQ AGS-20, a nanosilver antimicrobial product used in textiles. EPA will now have to reevaluate the risks associated with the product. EPA approved the product in 2011 under the condition that the manufacturer would submit additional safety data over four years. But in January 2012, the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group, sued EPA, claiming that the agency approved HeiQ AGS-20 without sufficient safety data. The court agreed with NRDC that EPA shouldn’t have approved the product because exposure levels were estimated to be right at the cutoff that would present a risk concern. The court denied NRDC’s other objections, ruling that EPA’s decision to evaluate risks on toddlers instead of infants was justified, as was its decision not to consider other sources of nanosilver.