FDA COLLABORATES WITH NSTI TO ADDRESS NANOTECH QUESTIONS

The FDA is working with the Nano Science and Technology Institute (NSTI) to address concerns about potential health and environmental risks from nanotechnology at a summit scheduled for 2007.

The "Health & Environmental Summit on Nano" is meant to assist the agency with its nanotechnology fact-finding mission, NSTI said in an Oct. 26 release. The meeting, which is scheduled for May 20 to 24, will bring a variety of experts together with FDA officials to discuss the risks and benefits of this new technology.

The agency has been under fire from activists for what they say is a failure on the FDA's part to anticipate potential health risks from nanomaterials. The agency recently convened an internal task force to address these concerns and held a public workshop earlier this month.

Nanoparticles are defined as particles having one or more dimensions smaller than 100 nanometers. A nanometer is 1 billionth of a meter. A human hair is roughly 80,000 nanometers wide, while a red blood cell is approximately 7,000 nanometers wide.