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NGO applies rhetoric to support environmental, health and safety claims
Published: Saturday 1 March 2008
In response to the publication of the Friends of the Earth (FoE) report on Nanotechnology & Sunscreens, David Berube of North Carolina State University, published a paper in Journal of Nanoparticle Research, which identifies that the FoE report uses a ‘risk profile shift’ from raw nanoparticles to sunscreen formulations to suggest environmental health and safety claims (cf. ‘shift fallacy’). In the paper entitled 'Rhetorical gamesmanship in the nano debates over sunscreens and nanoparticles', the author demonstrates the phenomenon of risk profile shifts re-examining the scientific articles and papers cited in the FoE report. Interviews with the authors of these articles and papers furthermore suggest that the finding of the original studies were reported with a much more totalistic or absolute rhetoric than could be drawn from them.
Follow this link to download the full paper (purchase or subscribers only; abstract freely available).