Health Committee on June 10th, 2010

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Joyce Murray]

Good morning, everyone. I'm convening meeting 23 of the Standing Committee on Health.

Welcome to the guests who are here to help us understand nanotechnology. Thank you for taking your time to be here with us.

Mr. Roco, thank you for being with us from Washington.

[Dr. Mihail Roco, Senior Advisor for Nanotechnology, National Nanotechnology Initiative, National Science Foundation, As an Individual]

Good morning. I'm glad to be here.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Joyce Murray]

Good morning.

This is a round table format, not the regular committee format. That means we will start with five-minute introductory statements from each of the visitors. After that, committee members will engage you in a dialogue and ask questions based on your statements, and we'll have a discussion.

We will begin with Claude Ostiguy, director of the research and expertise support department of the Institut de recherche Robert-Sauvé en santé et en sécurité du travail.

Mr. Ostiguy.

[Claude Ostiguy, Director, Research and Expertise Support Department, Institut de recherche Robert-Sauvé en santé et en sécurité du travail]

Thank you, Madam.

Good morning, everyone.

The Institut de recherche Robert-Sauvé en santé et en sécurité du travail, or IRSST, was created 30 years ago and contributes, through research, to the prevention of industrial accidents and occupational diseases as well as to the rehabilitation of affected workers.

The IRSST has been interested in the nanotechnology field for more than five years. Nanotechnologies—

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Joyce Murray]

Excuse me, Mr. Ostiguy. I neglected to mention that we have translation for our guests.

Thank you. Please continue.

[Claude Ostiguy]

As time is very limited, I will just read the papers you probably already have. They are available in English and in French.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Joyce Murray]

We're aiming for five minutes for the statement.

[Claude Ostiguy]

I'll probably read relatively quickly, because I must have enough for six or seven minutes.

Nanotechnologies are an emerging field with a potential for enormous economic and social development. The reason is very simple: the unique properties of nanoparticles (NP) should allow products with innovative characteristics to be developed, resulting in a multitude of applications in all fields of human activity.

Already, more than 1,000 products containing NPs are commercially available. They are offered by close to 500 companies located in 24 countries. The development and production of these new products should involve an increasing number of Canadian workers. The people potentially exposed to the highest concentration of nanoparticles can be found in the following three groups: researchers who develop new products; employees in companies that synthesize nanoparticles; and employees in companies that purchase nanoparticles for the purpose of introducing them into their production lines in order to create value-added products.

The IRSST's research work has allowed it to assess the state of current international scientific knowledge in the field of health risks related to nanoparticles in the workplace.

First, the concept of risk, i.e., toxic risk, has to be well understood. Toxic risk is the product of two components. The first component, toxicity, is a function of the nature of the product and the characteristics of the substance. The second component is related to the worker's level of absorption of this substance, which is directly linked to the level of air contamination and the worker's exposure time. Consequently, the toxic risk, or health risk, is the product of the toxicity (hazard) and the level of exposure. That can be summed up in a simple equation that clearly shows that, even in the presence of a potentially toxic product, the risk will be minimal if there is no worker exposure.

What do we know about the toxicity of nanoparticles? It is important to mention first that toxicological studies aiming to establish whether nanoparticles demonstrate some toxicity cover only a small proportion of existing nanoparticles. Second, for those that are documented, knowledge is generally insufficient to be able to accurately quantify the hazard. NPs that are insoluble or not very soluble in biological fluids are of the most concern because they can remain in the body for a long time, whereas the toxicity of soluble nanoparticles will mainly be a function of their chemical composition, not their size.

Nevertheless, currently available data show a behaviour that is often unique to NPs. At equal mass, several nanoparticles demonstrate a higher toxicity than the same chemical product of larger size. The measured toxic effects are poorly correlated with the mass. They are better correlated with different parameters, namely the number of particles, size, surface area and some surface properties. Several factors seem to contribute to the toxicity of these new-generation products. Given our fragmentary knowledge, it is currently impossible to weight their respective importance or to accurately predict the toxicity of a new NP.

The behaviour of nanoparticles in the body can be different from that of larger-size particles. In the pulmonary alveoli, our defence mechanisms are less efficient in eliminating nanoparticles than larger size particles. Some NPs can overcome our different defence mechanisms in the lungs, gastro intestinal tract or skin, enter the blood in solid form and from there travel through the body and accumulate at specific sites (liver, kidneys, etc.). Others can travel along the olfactory nerves and enter the brain directly, or even cross cell barriers and reach the cell nucleus.

In animals, a number of studies have demonstrated toxic effects in several organs, including the heart, lungs, kidneys and reproductive system. For example, some particles cause granuloma, fibrosis and tumour reactions in the lungs. Very little is known about the long-term effects of nanoparticles. In most cases, it will be difficult to quantify the specific toxicity of the nanoparticle to which workers are exposed.

The second risk component is related to the worker's exposure, namely to the contamination of the air that he or she breathes. There are numerous instruments for determining certain workplace exposure parameters, such as mass, dimension, number of particles and specific surface. However, few data exist on workplace exposure levels, and research in this field is just beginning to produce its first results.

Nevertheless, two important observations are emerging: the total lack of information on the level of exposure in the great majority of workplaces; and the lack of consensus within the scientific community about the parameters to measure that are representative and that link the exposure level to the product's toxicity.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Joyce Murray]

Excuse me, Mr. Ostiguy. Could you do a concluding statement and then the additional information can come out in the discussion?

Thank you.

[Claude Ostiguy]

Okay, I will conclude.

I will wrap up quickly.

Uncertainty must be managed and that is what we must do with nanoparticles. Therefore I would refer you to page 4 of my opening remarks where I make four recommendations to the committee: to promote and support the responsible and safe development of nanotechnologies; to facilitate the funding of certain research infrastructures so that those involved in research can implement effective preventive approaches; require adequate labelling so that any product or mixture of products containing nanoparticles is clearly identified so that workers know that they may be exposed to those products, and last, to promote the production and dissemination of best-practices guides for the workplace.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Joyce Murray]

Thank you very much.

We'd like to hear from Mr. Nils Petersen next.

[Dr. Nils Petersen, Director General, National Research Council Canada, National Institute for Nanotechnology]

Good morning.

My name is Nils Petersen. I did not prepare a formal brief for you, but I would like to just give you a brief background on myself and then also make three points.

I'm a physical chemist. I run an institute in Edmonton called the National Institute for Nanotechnology, where we currently have about 350 people working on various aspects of nanotechnology, all the way from applications in energy to applications in health and ICT, information communications technology, and biomaterials.

The three points I'd like to make are the following. First, nanotechnology is inevitable. It is something we cannot get away from, I think, and I'll speak a little bit more to it in a moment. The second point is that it will be everywhere. It's going to be pervasive. The third point I'd like to make is that while scale is an extraordinarily important component of nanotechnology, it is not the only component. I think we need to understand that when we deal with the risk aspect of it.

Why is it inevitable? It's inevitable because it is a new way of thinking from a scientific perspective. It is a new way of looking at creating new materials, designing new constructs, and thinking about the convergence of chemistry, physics, and biology in medicine and in all of the different disciplines we can think about. We are now working with a different mindset of designing building materials from a molecular scale up to structures that we design so that they have a particular functionality. It is a different way of thinking, and I think it is therefore also becoming very exciting for many people. I think it will be inevitable that we will be using that kind of thinking as we go forward.

It's going to be everywhere, because it is a platform; it is not an industry in its own right, it is a technology that can be applied in a number of different areas. We see it already in applications in energy fields, where we have catalysts that provide better utilization of oil. We have structures of surfaces of pipes that are making them more corrosion- and wear-resistant. We have in the environmental areas sensors that are detecting small amounts of other kinds of pollutants. We are seeing it in the health area as drug delivery mechanisms. We are seeing it as diagnostic tools. So we're seeing it in all kinds of different areas. We can therefore expect having a very complex environment in which to think about this kind of technology.

The third point is that it is not just about scale. It is clear that we think about nanotechnology as something in the order of 100 nanometers or less. That has a particular significance for some of us as scientists because it is bigger than the molecular scale and smaller than many of the things we normally have been working with. What's particularly important about this is that at that scale we start seeing new properties. It is not just because of the size. There is no magic number that will say the properties will appear at 100 nanometers, or 50 nanometers, or whatever. It is basically a scale at which we can think about materials having different kinds of properties. I'll give you an example. If you take a metal like gold and you melt it, it will melt at a particular temperature. When it gets very small, all of a sudden it will melt at a much lower temperature, and that's because the surface volume ratio changes quite significantly. We'll continue to see surprising and different kinds of properties.

All of this comes to the conclusion that when we think about risk management, we do not think about it as something we manage by saying “anything less than 100 nanometers we need to worry about”. We need to worry about each of the different applications and each of the different products in a different way. It doesn't make it easier. It makes it a lot more complex. But I think it's important that we think about this area from a product perspective rather than from a scale perspective. Unfortunately, there have been jurisdictions around the world where people have been thinking about trying to do regulation or whatever based simply on scale. I think that's the wrong path.

I'll leave it at that.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Joyce Murray]

Thank you for your opening remarks.

Dr. Claude Emond, a toxicologist from the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at Université de Montréal.

[Dr. Claude Emond, Toxicologist, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Université de Montréal]

Thank you, Ms. Murray.

Today, as a Canadian researcher, I'm going to talk about my own perception of this issue, but first I want to introduce myself. I have an affiliation with the University of Montreal as a clinical adjunct professor and also as an associate professor at UQAM. I'm part of the Science Advisory Board for the U.S. EPA for the Exposure and Human Health Committee. I also coordinate the risk assessment and acceptability access, a new provincial network called NE3LS, which is the acronym for Nanotechnology Ethical, Environmental, Economic, Legal and Social Issues. I also started as a team leader in the International Team in Nanosafety a couple of years ago. This is a group from five different countries, France, Japan, U.S.A., Germany, and Canada. Recently, we added another platform called Nanotechnology Environmental Society and Health, which is led by Professor Louise Vandelac from UQAM.

During the last few years I have participated in several workshops and meetings in the U.S., Canada, Germany, and Japan, and these are my observations from this participation, discriminating between the pros and the cons of nanotechnology.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Joyce Murray]

Excuse me. The translators are asking you to slow down just a little bit.

[Dr. Claude Emond]

I have only five minutes, so I was trying to get it all in there. Okay.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Joyce Murray]

You want your words understood, though.

[Dr. Claude Emond]

Okay.

The pros for nanotechnology are that the nano-particles generate products with unique, useful, and sometimes surprising properties. What is frequently observed is the chemistry at the nano-size is not the same as at a larger size, as Dr. Ostiguy said before. Also, the government and the private sector have spent a lot of money to develop this technology, which might be good for the economy. The concern with the development of nanotechnology is the way it works now. This will probably come with a lot of problems, I guess.

So the money also exclusively supports the development of nanotechnology in commercialization, but there is not enough on the health effects of the presence of nano-particles. We have no idea about the potential leachability and migration of nano-material from consumer products.

Many pieces of the puzzle are missing. Some nano-products are used directly in human consumer products—for example, personal care—and also in food, but we know almost nothing about that. We don't know what is the best metric to characterize the toxicity. Should we use weight? Should we use the surfaces? There is some deficiency in metrology, characterization, and toxicology that I will also point out during these discussions.

I will not cover all that the literature says about nanotechnology, but the absorption occurs principally by inhalation but can also occur by cutaneous and oral exposure. The nano-particles are distributed on the entire organism. After that, if it's not trapped by a specialized cell, a nano-particle can cross the blood-brain barrier, which is important to note here. They decrease the cell viability: DNA damage, oxidative stress, blood thrombosis, inflammation, and all these effects.

So what do we need? We need a national strategy in regard to nanotechnology development, maybe a CNI, Canadian nanotechnology initiative. We don't need to repeat what NNI has done so far, and they actually have done very well. The NNI is the National Nanotechnology Initiative in the U.S. So we may just need to start where they are, or closely collaborate in a complementary way with them.

On monetary resource equilibrium between the development of nanotechnology and the evaluation of toxicity, the federal government already works at the international level with the OECD. I think this is a good idea, but other initiatives should also be encouraged.

I say yes to the precautionary principle, but improving the knowledge and doing a real assessment of the risk is better in the long run.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Joyce Murray]

Please can you speak a bit more slowly? The translators are not working from your notes, so that makes it a little more—

[Dr. Claude Emond]

Okay. I'm worse in French.

The different meetings I attend point out the necessity to integrate the social communication transparency education aspect in nanotechnology development, so many structures already exist around the words. As I said before with OECD, NNI, we also have ISO 229. Now we have a network called NE3LS in Quebec, and we also have this international team we created a few years ago, which I spoke about.

A Canadian strategy initiative in nanotechnology can be inspired by a group above. In closing the discussion, I want to say there is an urgent need to coordinate the national development of nanotechnology and more particularly in parallel with the nanosafety issue, including research, characterization exposure, toxicology, and assessment. I would like to conclude by saying that Canada has to assume leadership in nanosafety and contribute to this international community rather than wait and see.

Thank you very much.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Joyce Murray]

Thank you very much.

Our next guest is Françoise Maniet, lecturer and research agent at the Centre de recherche de l'Université du Québec à Montréal. Welcome.

[Françoise Maniet, Lecturer and Research Agent, Centre de recherche interdisciplinaire sur la biologie, la santé, la société et l'environnement (CINBIOSE) et Groupe de recherche en droit international et comparé de la consommation (GREDICC), Université du Québec à Montréal]

Good morning and thank you for your invitation. I hope that I will manage to speak slowly because one does have to move quickly when one only has five minutes.

I'll start by introducing myself. Currently I am working under the direction of Louise Vandelac, at UQAM, in a team that is conducting research under a much broader, international project on nanotechnologies. I am collaborating on this with Claude Emond and Simon Beaudoin.

For 15 years I was a consultant for the European Commission examining issues of consumer and environmental health. I collaborated on, among other things, the development of guidelines for consumer product safety. I am currently a research assistant at UQAM, for both the Department of Legal Sciences and for CINBIOSE with Louise Vandelac.

I am finishing a master's in environmental sciences at UQAM and within my master's program I undertook a comparative analysis between the legal framework for nanotechnologies in the European Union and that of Canada. Today I'm going to share some thoughts, ideas and issues that struck me when I was conducting that comparative analysis.

It appears that in the area of nanotechnology the European Union is quite different from Canada and much further ahead. The European Union seems to have a legal framework that focuses more on the protection of the environment and health.

However, if one goes beyond political pronouncements and good intentions and one looks at measures currently actually being applied, the European Union and Canada seem to overlap in many respects.

My opening remarks will be divided into two parts. I'm first going to try to show you where the European Union and Canada differ in how they regulate nanotechnologies. Then I will talk about where they overlap.

Where they first differ is in their definition of an overall consistent policy that applies to nanotechnology. Second, the societal debates on nanotechnologies are at different stages. Third, there is a difference in how ethical principles are respected or affirmed. The fourth point of difference, and the one I will spend a little more time on, relates to the general mechanisms that are used to prevent harm caused to health and the environment by chemical substances and consumer products.

When one analyzes European legislation that applies to chemical substances, consumer products and cosmetics, one sees several major differences between Canada and the European Union. Generally speaking, I would say that the requirements that are imposed on economic operators, producers, distributors, and importers, are clearly more restrictive in the European Union than they are in Canada.

I'll give you a few examples that I looked into in somewhat more depth: regulations on chemical substances along with, in the European Union, the adoption of a system in 2007, the REACH system, that I'm sure you have heard about and that imposes much more restrictive requirements for marketing chemical substances.

Furthermore, in December 2009 a regulation was implemented for cosmetics in the European Union which strengthens those requirements for economic stakeholders, and that—and this is what is new—contains a clause specifically for nanotechnologies. Four points are included in this regulation: a common definition of nanomaterials, the requirement for labelling so that consumers can easily identify nano-ingredients, a requirement for a European catalogue of cosmetics that contain nanoparticles and the requirement for a risk assessment prior to marketing products that contain nanomaterials and have specific uses. I think that this is rather innovative.

The third type of legislation that strikes me as being more protective, is the legislation on the general safety of consumer products, that has been in effect in the European Union since 1992 and that not only includes general safety requirements for all producers, importers and distributors of consumer products but also includes another series of major requirements such as the follow-up of a product once it has been marketed, the obligation to inform the administration of any risks that that product may present and the obligation to withdraw or recall dangerous products.

Furthermore, government officials also have a range of powers allowing them to deal with potentially hazardous products. In Canada—

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Joyce Murray]

Excusez-moi, Madame. Could you make your concluding remarks, please? Then your other comments can come out in the discussion.

[Françoise Maniet]

In Canada, we know that Bill C-6 was unfortunately withdrawn. We hope that the bill will soon be revived so that Canada may have a legislative framework comparable to that of the European Union.

I now come to the issue of convergence. I would simply like to point out the areas of convergence between the European Union and Canada. If we consider only those measures that have been implemented today, i.e., concrete measures, we find that there is not much of a difference between the European Union and Canada in the area of nanotechnologies, since there are no general regulations, with the exception—as I have already indicated—of the cosmetics and food additive industries—but there is not enough time for me to address that.

There is no common definition or classification of nanomaterials. Neither is there any pre-market control mechanism. Risk assessment methods are somewhat inadequate. There is no mandatory labelling and no transparency in terms of nanotechnology uses and applications. All of those issues are unanimously recognized as priorities on which we have to start working. All experts agree on that.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Joyce Murray]

Thank you very much.

Our last guest is with us by video conference. He is Mr. Mihail Roco, senior advisor for nanotechnology at the National Nanotechnology Initiative, National Science Foundation.

Thank you, Mr. Roco.