ICTA petitioning EPA about silver products

scorpiotiger · � #1 � 01-13-2009, 10:42 AM

ICTA is petitioning EPA to regulate silver products.. like the colloidal silver products on the market now. They say they are doing this to warn people about the dangers of nanotechnology..

International Center for Technology Assessment (their sister site is the Center for Food Safety)

ICTA warning against the dangers of nanotechnology:

ICTA's legal actions against nano products:

here is a new york times article about the petition:
No Silver Bullets - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Quote:

May 6, 2008, 6:03 pm

No Silver Bullets

By Barnaby J. Feder

No one ever said suing the federal government was a quick way to get policies changed, but if you are very, very patient, it sometimes gets results before everyone involved has retired.

With that in mind, it is worth noting that the International Center for Technology Assessment said Thursday that it had organized a coalition of consumer and environmental groups to file a complaint with the Environmental Protection Agency over its failure to regulate consumer products containing anti-microbial compounds that use particles of silver so small their dimensions are measured in nanometers. (A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter.)

Do you remember last year�s Supreme Court ruling that the E.P.A., despite its protestations to the contrary, had the legal authority � and perhaps responsibility � under the Clean Air Act to do something about the greenhouse-gas emissions linked to climate change? That case grew out of a similar petition for action to the E.P.A. filed by the International Center in 1989 1999. A number of states picked up the issue in 2003 after the E.P.A. brushed aside the petition. By the time the Supreme Court weighed in, �every environmental group in the universe� was �on the bandwagon,� according to George Kimbrell, staff lawyer for the Washington-based technology policy group.

Nano-silver particles won�t attract the same attention as the prospect of global climate catastrophe. But nanotech skeptics, perhaps taking their cue from the former Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, are going to war with the weapons they�ve got. With no evidence so far that nanotech is actually damaging anyone, they are focusing on the materials most widely used in consumer products and doing their best to worry the public � and government officials � about potential hazards that have yet to be thoroughly researched.

The two groups of materials most often spotlighted in this strategy are nano-scale pigments, which are used in sunscreens and cosmetics, and nano-silver particles. The silver is already used in more than 200 consumer products to kill germs, according to some tallies. Silver has been present in the environment as an antiseptic far longer than humans have existed, but there are indications that manmade, nanoscale silver particles are more lethal to microbes � including beneficial microbes.

The new petition takes the E.P.A. to task for not treating nanoscale silver particles as a new pesticide requiring extensive regulatory analysis and oversight before anything is sold to the public. The petitioners include some high-profile names in the debate over nanotech safety � Greenpeace and the Consumers Union, among others � but there is no reason to think the E.P.A. is about to budge from its position that it can address any problems using the same approach it has been applying to other anti-microbial substances without regard to size.

That policy is, to oversimplify a bit, don�t ask, don�t tell � if a company using silver particles as an anti-microbial agent doesn�t make undocumented health claims, the E.P.A. isn�t going to ask for data showing it complies with the pesticide laws, absent some evidence that real environmental damage is occurring. As a result, marketers are pushing the envelope on advertising that suggests health advantages without claiming them specifically. That policy has led E.P.A. to act on a few products marketed as nanotechnology, like Samsung�s Silvercare washing machine and Iogear�s computer mice. But critics are looking for far more aggressive scrutiny of nano-silver and, by extension, all nanotechnology.

Mr. Kimbrell notes that the E.P.A. has an undefined �reasonable time� to respond to the petition. That is a slippery target. He said that the Food and Drug Administration still has not directly responded to a petition from his group two years ago that sought specific rules for regulating nanotechnology cosmetic products, particularly sunscreens, although it has independently taken some action and sought comments on some issues outlined in the petition.

Any bets on how long the nano-silver tussle takes to play out?

Arrowwind09 · � #2 � 01-13-2009, 06:25 PM

Best to have your own colloidal silver maker!

scorpiotiger · � #3 � 01-13-2009, 07:49 PM

look at who the petitioners are (the petitioners are the entities/companies that are petitioning EPA to regulate nano-silver):

Petition for Rulemaking Requesting EPA Regulate Nanoscale Silver Products as Pesticides; Notice of Availability

Quote:

II. Summary of the Petition:
The following entities are listed as petitioners in the ‘‘Petition for Rulemaking Requesting EPA Regulate Nano-Silver Products as Pesticides’’:

International Center for Technology Assessment (CTA)
Center for Food Safety (CFS)
Beyond Pesticides
Friends of the Earth (FOE)
Greenpeace
Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration
Center for Environmental Health (CEH)
Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC)
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP)
Clean Production Action (CPA)
Food & Water Watch
Loka Institute
Center for the Study of Responsive Law (CSRL)
Consumers Union

and the ICTA.org mission:

Quote:

Nanotechnology

Tiny Technology, Significant Risk

Nanotechnology is the science of engineering on a molecular scale, in effect building matter atom-by-atom from the "bottom up." The prefix "nano" denotes a fraction of one-one billionth, and nanotechnology involves the construction of matter a billionth of a meter in size: roughly the size of several atoms. This developing industrial process would use microscopic machines, themselves only slightly larger than the products being constructed, to assemble atoms into precisely designed molecules. These nanotech machines would be capable of repairing and replicating themselves. In essence, they would become never-before-seen, manmade life forms.

This all may seem very farfetched to those of us used to dealing with the macroscopic world, where the construction of an automobile or skyscraper still seems like a modern miracle. Machines so small that they would escape detection by all but the most powerful microscopes must be the invention of an ingenious science fiction writer. However, leading nanotechnology researchers predict that they will be able to synthesize "artificial bacteria" in the very near term. Not much further down the road, microscopic robots, whether they be entirely mechanical or biological-mechanical hybrids, may be mass produced and released into the environment.

Researchers are often vague when describing what these nanotechnology tools will actually do. Some envision using these tiny machines to manufacture improved computer components or even more durable macroscopic fabrics. Others say that nanomachines will one day operate within the human body, repairing damaged cells, serving as sensors or probes, or even enhancing the body's performance. One day nanotechnology combined with genetic engineering and computerized artificial intelligence may allow people to choose their feelings, increase their intelligence, or lengthen their life spans indefinitely.

With the potential to redefine "humanity" or even life itself, nanotechnology obviously carries a host of ethical concerns. Unfortunately, the science is likely to advance much more quickly than the ethical debate. What's worse, once we release these microscopic technologies, we are certain to have a difficult time controlling them. Currently scientists find the prospects of containing an oil spill or removing nuclear contamination daunting, if not impossible, tasks. They have been unable to prevent genetic pollution from biotech plants from cross-pollinating with weeds or contaminating other crops. Just imagine the difficulties we would face confronting a microscopic army of self-replicating nanotech robots designed to invade and alter the human body!

CTA seeks to halt the commercialization of nanotechnology until products containing nanoparticles have been proven safe. CTA also seeks to force federal regulatory agencies to adopt an accurate and standardized definition of nanotechnology and to regulate emerging nanotechnologies as they would other materials whose safety has not been determined.

except... silver ions are not nanotechnology.

unless I'm missing something... I don't understand how they equate silver ions with nanotechnology...

Mad Scientest · � #4 � 01-13-2009, 10:01 PM

No I don�t think your missing anything. You are just supposed to accept without questioning whatever these �experts� say.

Sounds similar to global warming where again don�t question the �experts� just shut up and prepare to pay your carbon tax.

nightowl · � #5 � 01-14-2009, 01:50 AM

Most of the petioning organizations I've never heard of. I'd like to see a list of members to prove if their credentials are real or false. How about if the people selling colloidal silver would just take the words nanoparticle off of the advertising and the lables?

scorpiotiger · � #6 � 01-15-2009, 10:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nightowl

Most of the petioning organizations I've never heard of. I'd like to see a list of members to prove if their credentials are real or false. How about if the people selling colloidal silver would just take the words nanoparticle off of the advertising and the lables?

I think everyone's heard of greenpeace.

the thing is... I agree with the point that before nanotechnology is just put into products.. it should be tested.

but... I don't consider silver ions "nanotechnology".

Which makes me wonder if they understand the difference. I don't get why they chose silver as a "showcase" test for this. About the only reason I can think of is that they are starting to put silver in a lot of marketplace products.

and... this worries me, because contrary to what these alternative sites will tell you, bacteria can become silver resistant. Just like they can become antibiotic resistant. If they start putting silver in everything, then.. will it have the same effect as putting anti-bacterial chemicals in everything? will we end up with silver resistant strains?

Will people that drink collodial silver every day end up having it not work when they need it the most?

I think I would rather have silver just used when it is needed...

a couple of reports of silver resistant bacteria..

Prevalence of Silver Resistance in Bacteria Isolated from Diabetic Foot Ulcers and Efficacy of Silver-Containing Wound Dressings

Silver-Resistant Mutants of Escherichia coli Display Active
Efflux of Ag1 and Are Deficient in Porins

nightowl · � #7 � 01-15-2009, 11:17 AM

Greenspeace and Consumers Union are the only ones out of 14 listed that I recognize, and I'm not wild about them either. Most of the others seem like they are made up. Have you ever heard of the "Food and Water Watch" or "Clean Production Action" organizations?? In my opinion, if the individual members can't sign their names like the rest of us are required to do on a petition, then it should only count as one vote...not the many. How many are in each group?

I agree that silver shouldn't be added to a lot of different products. I don't have time to check out the links right now, but I will later today.

jfh · � #8 � 01-15-2009, 11:50 AM

I thought that silver did not kill microbes. I thought that microbes just don't like to be in the same area as silver. However, I now understand differently. I believe that silver really does kill. Unfortunately, it does not discriminate from good or bad microbes. It has to do with ion exchange. Silver's positively charged ionic form is highly toxic for microorganisms. These microbes cannot mutate from this positive/negative ion aspect. Silver attacks multiple sites within these cells too.

I thought that the FDA had grandfathered colloidal silver in its "safe" list; because it has been proven for many years anecdotally and clinically to be a healer. But I guess the EPA does not look at FDA rulings. So this is bad.

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