Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-09-28-Speech-4-022"
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"en.20060928.4.4-022"2
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"Mr President, what are policy-makers supposed to do about nanotechnology? We cannot allow ourselves to become no more than promoters who uncritically accept hype, and nor can it be our function to go into the roadshow and nanocafé business in an attempt at allaying people’s real fears. We cannot allow ourselves to be no more than carriers of advertising for nanotechnology.
Politicians are there to see to it that consumers and the environment are protected. Nanotechnology is used to put on the market products such as cosmetics, cleaning materials, and textiles, which are aimed at private consumers and virtually unregulated. As Mr Prodi has just said, there is no legal framework applicable to nanotechnology. When the Commission’s scientific committee admits, as it did on 29 September last year, and I quote, that ‘there are considerable gaps in terms of risk assessment, of characterisation and of the measurement of nano-particles. Little is known about the relationship between dose and effect, nothing at all about where in the human body nano-particles end up and how long they remain there, and little about the degree to which they are toxic to the environment’, then we cannot ignore that and bury our heads in the sand; on the contrary, is it for you, you in the Commission, to create a permanent legal framework to protect all consumers.
Have we really learned nothing from our experience with asbestos? We have just heard that nano-particles are capable of crossing the blood/brain barrier. Knowing as we do of these risks, surely we have to put protective mechanisms in place? We cannot simply allow these products to be put onto the market and tested on consumers; we cannot allow consumers to be treated as guinea pigs!
It is no part of the role of policy makers to be placard carriers for nanotechnology; their role, on the contrary, is to put in place a comprehensive legal framework for their regulation, control and measurement – all the things, that is, to which your own expert opinion makes reference.
Anything else would be to do a disservice to nanotechnology, which can make headway on the market, and be economically sustainable, only if we make it plain that account must also be taken of the interests of the consumers and of the risks involved. If Europe is to be a good place in which to site a business, it must also be a good place in which to be a consumer, and there is a lot missing in that respect. I see it as positively irresponsible that the Commission, even though it knows what is missing and is aware of the lack of any methodology for assessing the risks, wants to allow the marketing of consumer goods aimed at private citizens and their households, without the certainty of every risk having been removed. I again appeal to you, as a matter of urgency, to do something about this.
We have as yet had little to say about the dangers, the ethical problems, about enhancement, about the enrichment of nano-particles in human beings, for we have long believed that these were the stuff of science fiction, but these perils are drawing closer.
What I expect of the European Union is that it should give the USA an answer, and our answer, the European response to nanotechnology, far from being that we are willing to follow technology in a lemming-like fashion, must be that we will take a socially responsible approach and consider the risks involved."@en1
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