Search news

Click here for search tips

Most searched tags

‘Neither warning nor News’: German Environment Agency clarifies its position on Nanotechnologies

Published: Thursday 22 October 2009

The German Umweltbundesamt (UBA) (Federal Environmental Agency) has published a clarifying contribution to yesterday’s media-frenzy following the publication of a Spiegel-Online article (21st October 2009, 7:08), according to which the German Federal Environmental Agency apparently ‘advised consumers to be particularly vigilant when using products containing nanoparticles, until more was known about the materials’ effect on the environment and human health.’ The article was picked up by numerous media, and similar ‘warning’-headlines even featured on Germany’s main TV news programme, Tagesschau (21st October 2009).

In another Spiegel-Online interview (21st October 2009, 17:49), promptly initiated by the German Federal Environmental Agency, in order to calm the debate, Agency representatives clarify that the original UBA press release was contained neither a warning, nor did it refer to any newly release studies or results: ‘We did not conduct any research’, notes Wolfgang Dubbert in an interview with Spiegel-Online, co-author of the UBA Background-Paper, whose publication was subject of the UBA press release.

Entitled ‘Nanotechnik für Mensch und Umwelt - Chancen fördern und Risiken mindern‘ (English: ‚Nanotechnology for Humans and the Environment – Promotion of Opportunities & Minimisation of Risks‘) merely represents an update of an UBA Background –Paper published in 2006 (no longer available).

The Agency’s clarification is backed by René Zimmer, expert at the Unabhängigen Institut für Umweltfragen in Berlin (UfU) (Independent Environmental Institute, Berlin), who points out that the updated UBA Background-Paper ‘isn’t ‘new’ at all’, and that it represented  ‘a collation of previous UBA activities in nanotechnology’. Zimmer furthermore refers to the numerous research programmes conducted by the German government, in order to investigate the potential risks posed by nanotechnologies: ‘I don’t think that the question of potential risks is being neglected at all; it is being taken very seriously,’ he notes.

In fact, the updated UBA Background-Paper (and its press release) highlights the advantage nanotechnologies are already providing to numerous applications, ranging from lighter plastic composites for cars and aeroplanes that lead to a significant decrease in fuel consumption to novel light-emitting diodes with longer life-times and more efficient energy usage.

The German media-frenzy of the 21st October 2009 has –once again - left the bad aftertaste of unbalanced reporting on nanotechnologies; the readers are left with impressions of a scientifically unfounded large risk-benefit ratio.

Follow these links to find out more about the nanotechnology-related activities of the German Federal Environmental Agency (UBA) and the German Federal German Federal Ministry for the Environment Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU), or to read the original UBA press release, or to download the updated UBA Background-Paper.

 
Related Links:
The German Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM) (Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing) has launched a website listing ‘Nanoscaled Reference Materials’. In cooperation with ISO/TC 229 Nanotechnologies, BAM has collated information on the world-wide commercially available nano-scale reference materials, as well as manufacturers and vendors. (24th July 2009)
 
‘Industry has been upfront about its use of promising new technologies and that companies go to great lengths to ensure products are safe’, confirms Steffi Friedrichs, director of the Nanotechnology Industries Association, at a Trans Atlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD) event, held in Brussels on the 10th June 2009. (15th June 2009)