Nanotubes pose same danger as asbestos, study says

Washington Post

Microscopic, high-tech “nanotubes” that are being manufactured for use in a wide variety of consumer products cause the same kind of damage in the body as asbestos does, according to a study in mice that is raising alarms among workplace safety experts and others.

Within days of being injected into mice, the nanotubes — which are increasingly used in electronic components, sporting goods and dozens of other products — triggered a kind of cellular reaction that over a period of years typically leads to mesothelioma, a fatal form of cancer, researchers said.

Only certain kinds of the vanishingly small fibers have that toxic effect, the study found. And further experiments must be done to prove that the engineered motes can cause problems when inhaled, the way most people might be exposed to them.

But the preliminary evidence of cancer risk is strong enough to justify urgent follow-up tests and government guidance for nano factory workers, who are most likely to be exposed, experts said. Others called for labels to guide consumers or recyclers who might encounter the material when incinerating or otherwise destroying discarded nano products.

“In a sense, we are forewarned and forearmed now with respect to nanotubes,” said Anthony Seaton of the Institute of Occupational Medicine in Edinburgh, Scotland, who contributed to the research, published in Tuesday’s online edition of the journal Nature Nanotechnology. “We know that some of them probably have the potential to cause mesothelioma. So those sorts of materials need to be handled very carefully.”

The research comes at a crucial time in the science, business and regulation of nanotechnology, a promising new field that involves the creation of particles a few billionths of a meter in diameter.

Such minuscule bits of material behave very differently than larger pieces of the very same substances. So while chunks of carbon do not conduct electricity well, for example, nanotubes made of carbon atoms conduct it easily, making them useful in computer components and other materials that would be harmed by a buildup of static charges.

Companies around the world have begun to churn out thousands of tons of nanomaterials per year, including nanotubes, spherical nanoscale “Buckyballs” and other engineered specks called quantum dots, which show promise in medical diagnosis. Nanotubes alone are expected to be a $2 billion industry within the next few years.

But that production frenzy has raised concerns because the materials are being regulated on the basis of what they are made of — such as “carbon” — even though, by virtue of their size, they pose very different health and environmental risks.