Regulation looms for nanotechnology

Such is the suspicion that greets any new technology that some sort of scrutiny and regulation is almost inevitable. At least in the case of nanotechnology a lot of thought is going into the topic before products exist in profusion.

Anyone hoping to make money in this sector will want to keep up with developments, including the latest report from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Written by J. Clarence (Terry) Davies, former assistant administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of te USA during the first Bush regime, the report, Managing the Effects of Nanotechnology, says that "Nanotechnology is difficult to address using existing regulations".

We may, then, need new laws. Davies suggests that such a law "would require manufacturers to submit a sustainability plan which would show that the product will not present an unacceptable risk". Do nothing, he says, and "a range of undesirable developments could emerge.The public potentially would be left unprotected, the government would struggle to apply existing laws to a technology for which they were not designed, and industry would be exposed to the possibility of public backlash, loss of markets, and potential financial liabilities."