NIOSH Current Intelligence Bulletin on Occupational Exposure to Titanium Dioxide

A few days ago, NIOSH released Current Intelligence Bulletin 63: Occupational Exposure to Titanium Dioxide which looks at currently available scientific data on the toxicity of titanium dioxide (including engineered nanoparticles of this substance), and describes exposure monitoring techniques, exposure and control strategies, and research needs. This report only addresses occupational exposures by inhalation.In the report, the authors outline the agency's suggestions for exposure levels that will help workers avoid long-term problems. The report recommends that nanoscale titanium dioxide should be considered a potential occupational carcinogen at this time.

WHO Guidelines on Nanomaterials and Worker's Health

The World Health Organization recently announced that it was forming a team to help develop guidelines to protect workers from potential risks of manufactured nanomaterials. They are currently only at the stage of identifying individuals who are interested in working on developing these guidelines, but the overall goal of is to develop a series of “…recommendations to improve occupational safety and protect [the] health of workers using nanomaterials in all countries and especially in low and medium income countries.

The WHO is asking for interested parties to send in relevant publications and references, as well as to propose experts to potentially participate in the development of these guidelines.

Welcome to the new NanoEthicsBank Blog!

Welcome!

For five years now, the NanoEthicsBank, a database exploring the societal and ethical implications of nanotechnology, has been documenting developments in this area through seminal reports, journal articles, and other materials being published from about 2000 to the present. Materials collected in this database include normative documents, such as guidelines for safety in the workplace, and descriptive materials, such as analysis of the U.S. government’s capacity for oversight and studies of the media coverage of nanotechnology.

One of our main focuses in this project has been to follow the development of normative documents, such as standards, best practices and guidelines. We have been researching both who is developing these guidelines, how and why they are being developed, as well as how these guidelines are being (or not being) used by research institutions and companies working with nanomaterials. This blog is our attempt to share our findings with the wider community. On it, we will post both recent additions to the NEB collection in the area of normative documents, as well as findings from our own research and the related work of other scholars active in this area.

Please continue to check back in the next weeks and months for updates to this blog, and let us know what you think!