Nanotechnology: Nanoscale Particles A Health Hazard?

securitas writes "Before you start dreaming of all the benefits nanotechnology will bring you, think about the health hazards. Over two dozen studies that date back to 1984 indicate that nanoscale materials are toxic because their size allows them to be easily ingested, inhaled or absorbed through the skin. Proponents of nanotech dismiss the meta-study as nonsense, while the authors suggest a moratorium on nanotech development until further health research is completed." The paper (726 kB PDF) that prompted this article is available.

Comments

It's good that this study was funded by neutrals

[Vengeance]

It's not as if this were being put out by a group which, oh, say, was interested in opposing the rapid development of Nanotech...

Intelligent Nanobots

[rf0]

This remind me of an episode of the Twilight Zone where someone was injected with clever nanobots and they actually started improving the person by putting eyes in the back of his head etc. They ended up advancing him so far that he was shunned by society and try to kill himself but found out that the nanobots would fix whatever he did

i.e. cut his writes they would heal it straight away

As he become good as immortal it was implied that he lived forever. Now that can't be good. Having to watch daytime TV for the next 1000 years :)

Rus

news flash!

[Anonymous Coward]

inhalation of experimental compounds discovered harmful!

Seriously, rule number one of any lab is "don't sniff that stuff" followed by "don't eat it or rub it on yourself, either." ;-)

Just as with biologics

[Timesprout]

This just means that appropriate care must be taken as when dealing with other tiny organic machines such as bacteria and viruses.

The Diamond Age revisited

[maya]

In Neil Stephenson's great nanotech novel The Diamond Age, the diseases caused by the spread of nano-agents in the atmosphere caused a major public health problem, with a widespread epidemic of life-threatening asthma caused by inhalation of the agents.

Logically, it makes sense

[samurairas]

Look, merely because all of the potential positive effects of nanotechnology are being extolled by supporters doesn't mean that micro scale objects pose no health threats. Considering the emphasis that the EPA and environmental organizations are putting on the health hazards of particulate matter, it's a good idea to examine the potential problems here. Some might argue that nanotech particles would be too small to pose a significant threat, but something that small could easily work it's way into structures in the human body previously accessible only by other types of cells. I don't know about you, but I shudder to think of the potential damage that could be done to the air sacs in lungs just from breathing in "clouds" of these structures, even if benign. I'm not saying that nanotech is bad; just that thinking of it as totally benign is foolish.

Re:It's good that this study was funded by neutral

[EnlightenedDuck]

Worse than that - I tried looking for the methods section and couldn't find it. The paper discusses a few case studies (i.e. are Carbon Nanotubes dangerous), and finds inconclusive evidence. I especially enjoyed where when explaining why researchers used a less effective but cheaper method it was because the more expensive method was like "feeding pearls to swines." Aimed at generating a public outcry, not at convincing the people knowledgeable about the science.

Also, it wasn't pubilshed in a peer-reviewed forum - generally a good indication of poor science.

Nanomachines!

[mmol_6453]

A couple milliamperes alone are enough to cause muscle to go into tight contraction. That spells "heart attack" if it goes through your heart.

Having measured myself, I know I'm 2.2 megaohms from one hand to the next. I'm told that, if you puncture the skin, that goes down to only a few ohms.

Seriously, Ben Bova wrote a couple of books on the political consequences of nanomachines. I thought that Slashdot, of all places, would have smaller percentage of nanoluddites than the general public. I mean, come on people. All technology comes with consequences. We usually accept these risks freely.

And, think about it. The types of nanotechnology Ben Bova described as dangerous were self-replicating. But aren't bacteria self-replicating? What about chemical explosions? Nuclear reactions?

The only types of nanomachines that are dangerous are those that perform only a minimal amount of precautions as to what specific things they can operate on.

Also, antidotes will come a lot more easily, should a nanomachine prove to have negative effects on health, there's no reason another nanomachine can't be built to specifically destroy the first. At the point when nanomachines become really useful, they'll be capable of recognizing entire molecules based on physical structure, not just on chemical properties. Nanomachines will be able to be built to specifically recognize the structure of the target nanomachine, and so developers will be able to precisely control what nanomachines will operate on.

Finally, I don't think people realize how difficult it will be to create a self-replicating nanomachine. It's a damned complicated process. It's not like computer viruses that can copy themselves with a hardcoded memcpy() command; self-replicating nanomachines would have to be able to build another copy of itself without using itself as a reference.

Re:Translation

[zackbar]

We should outlow dihydrogen oxide as well, since breathing it in can cause death within minutes.

It also damages property and the environment.