Nanotech could be as dangerous as asbestos

13 May 2010

The “huge lack of knowledge” regarding the impact of nanotechnologies on health and the working environment has been condemned in Denmark, with many comparing the hazards of nanoparticles with asbestos.

The nanotechnology revolution is booming in that country but the National Research Centre for the Working Environment (NFA) has for some time been expressing concerns at the lack of research on safety in this area.

The LO union has also demanded further research and the establishment of a national centre on nano-safety.

The NFA’s research manager, Otto Melchior Poulsen, said that test animals used for research in his institute on carbon nanotubes got pleural cancer, a disease many workers exposed to asbestos also caught.

He said: “We can, on a scientific basis, draw a parallel between the nano boom and the asbestos scandal.”

Ejner Holst, LO secretary and member of the NFA's management, said that he was afraid the same mistakes would be made as with asbestos, which was not banned “until corpses were on the table”.

An NFA study has caused the Danish government environment protection agency to ban, on 16 April, a spray sold by NanoCover. This is one of the leaders of the Scandinavian nanotechnological market which has already had to remove from the market, in 2008, a self-cleaning product for windows containing nano titanium oxide.