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Can Asbestos Help Us Understand Nanotoxicity?
Roland Piquepaille writes "Occupational Hazards is running an interesting article about how using our knowledge of asbestos could help us to assess the risks from nanoparticles, or their nanotoxicity. Today, it's unknown if nanomaterials under development are dangerous to human beings or to our environment. Some people think that nanoparticles can move to our lungs or our brains, presenting a significant threat to our health. Other scientists think there is no danger because we have been exposed to nanoparticles for thousands of years, such as ashes from volcanic eruptions. For example, nanotubes which are now used for many industrial developments, have similar shapes as fibers like asbestos, being long and extremely thin. And like nanomaterials today, asbestos was considered as harmless when humans were exposed to it. While the comparison has some merit, more research needs to be done before drawing any conclusion."
This looks to be the second article in a row from the esteemed Monsieur Piquepaille that doesn't link to an article in his blog. Check out his story posting history:
Can asbestos help us understand nanotoxicity? Wed Oct 19, '05 12:23 PM
Pillows Dangerous for Your Health Sat Oct 15, '05 12:28 PM
Molecular Gastronomy, The Science of Cooking Mon Aug 29, '05 11:32 AM
The Eyes of the Space Shuttle Wed Aug 03, '05 12:58 PM
BIG gap between the two latest non-self-referential stories, and the weekly shameless self-promotion that used to be his trademark.
I suspect that somebody either gave Mr. P a stern talking-to, or more likely the editors just quit accepting his stories. Now, he's back, chastened and better for it. You've got to admit, the guy has an eye for science stories. He's just got to have confidence that if he posts good stuff, the click-throughs to his main page (linked appropriately to his name) will follow in time.
I'm all for shameless self-promotion, of course, but I'm content with the URL link in the post heading. Well, mostly...
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
"Other scientists think there is no danger because we have been exposed to nanoparticles for thousands of years, such as ashes from volcanic eruptions. " /sarcasm on/ /sarcasm off/
And humans haven't had ANY as of yet unexplained health problems over those thousands of years either.
I think it was a bloody shame that the EPA declared New York's air safe to breath after the attack on the World Trade Center, when trillions of nano-toxins were released into the air for cleanup and emergency crews to inhale. We're going to see more of New York Lung, in the years to come.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
is that (at least with buckyballs and nanotubes) they're non-biodegradable (in this they're similar to asbestos). I recall watching the photo of a macrophage destroyed because it tried to swallow an asbestos particle.
The questions to be asked are:
Can the nanoparticles destroy the human cells, or alter their DNA as a side effect?
Can they clutter in the bloodstream or inside the organs?
It's the new Roland Piquepaille 'advertisement model' Roland takes your cash up front and gets your site's story in this case, ocupationalhazards.com, submitted to slashdot, and roland gets a cut, slashdot gets a cut, and everyone's happy. News for Turds, Shit That pays.
I live in NYC, and I don't trust the EPA to tell me that nanoparticles are safe. They lied to us after 9/11/2001 about the poisonous air. They lied to the heroic volunteers and police/fire/EMTs who could have worn masks while digging in the rubble. Instead thousands of people are walking testimonials to the EPA's lies about air pollution. I see them every day. The EPA's got a lot of work to recover its credibility. And I haven't seen anything to convince me that they're on that path.
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make install -not war
The dangers of asbestos were actualy knowns since as early as 1898, when Lucy Dean, one of the first women inspectors for factories in the UK wrote about asbestos work as one of the top four dusty occupations which came under observation that year 'on account of their easily demonstrated danger to the health of workers and because of ascertained cases of injury of brinchial tubes and lungs'.
o rt_2001_22/en/issue-22-part-05.pdf for more informations about asbestos and the problems it's use created.
Similar observations followed in the years 1909 and 1910 and were widly circulated amongst policy-makers and politicans. By 1918 insurance companies in Canada and the United States declined insurance cover for asbestos workers 'due to the assumed injourious conditions in the industry'.
I repeat; the danger of asbestos was known from the very beginning and shorty thereafter insurance companies decliend to cover asbestos damage. That was in the 1920s. Asbestos was however used into the 1980 as a cheap and fire resistant material.
I think we should learn from the mistakes in the past and try not to repeat them.
Read this http://reports.eea.eu.int/environmental_issue_rep
I'm a politician in a parks & rec district that recently underwent national media attention on asbestos, and have had some opportunity to do some research on this - as well as get squeezed in a battle between the EPA and our county govt. on this asbestos issue - primarily over the perceived threat to property values (and taxes collected from it).
My seat of the pants analysis of this is based somewhat on a 2003 conference held in San Francisco with attendance by a worldwide collection of asbestos related experts.
Bottom line - not much has improved in studies for asbestos related health risks. How much is safe? What is the correlation between exposure, longevity, lifestyle, etc? It seems that Chrysotile forms of asbestos are "more safe" due to their curly shape, and apparent expectorability from the lungs via natural processes (breathing, coughing, philial movement, encapsulation in other materials produced by your body, etc.)
However, Amphibole types seem to be much more dangerous - needle-like, long fibers. Easily "stuck" into tiny spaces in the lungs and not expectorated. Macrophages in the lungs apparently envelope these fibers and work to eventually break them down, but for some reason, they don't encapsulate the entire length of the fibers (if you can imagine a pig-in-a-blanket dough/hotdog analogy). Not much is understood of this area, and due to the location, is not an area for easy testing. Combine that with the longevity for detection, it's difficult to do tests on any factors leading to, or progression of any asbestos related illnesses.
What the EPA is certain in saying is that there appears to be a 5X incidence of mesothelioma among smokers (in an occupational setting - somewhat difficult to compare to a park setting with occasional possible exposure). However, ATSDR says there isn't a way to distinguish smokers related illnesses against mesothelioma, which leads me to believe as another poster suggested that asbestos interferes with some portion of the lungs or biological process/byproduct with close proximity to the lungs that allows greater incidence of mesothelioma amongst smokers.
Testing has been somewhat difficult under existing standards. Spiked samples of asbestos have come back with 0 fibers/cm^3 readings from labs, clean samples have come back with readings. Then there are some tests conducted by labs that violate friability standards - by crushing the rock and then looking for asbestos. This is not a realistic exposure model.
As a result of the screwball results, the EPA was unwilling to admit that the soil samples were bad, preferring to use only air samples that were collected via activity based testing and comparing the results ot nearby stationary air samplers. Apparently there is some consistency seen using such methods.
HOWEVER, the EPA left town, wanting to wash their hands of some of this debacle. We still have a fence up near a field, and have conducted further tests by a certified hazardous materials expert. The results are coming back 0 (preliminary tests). That's a cause of consternation on the part of the EPA as well as by our parks & rec dept. How do we reconcile the differences and does the EPA end up having a tarnished image from even the new testing methodology? How do we instill confidence in parents whose kids play on the field, or in a nearby tot-lot where the EPA said there were elevated levels of asbestos? (Our community has asbestos running through it, but this field has a totally different type of asbestos apparently (from EPA, not our own subsequent testing) which was brought in as a replaced field mix.
This is an area where there is not much glory for this type of research, and is fraught with VERY long periods of time before any possible correlated illness is even detected (usually by death - but was it by THIS exposure?)
I suppose that in the area of nano-technology, it will be a good thing to at least be open to this area of study, but may also prove to show causation.
Me