Health Committee on June 10th, 2010

[Dr. Mihail Roco]

Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to testify--

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Excuse me, Mr. Roco. We have to stop for a moment. There is a technical problem hearing you and translating your remarks. We'll hold until we've sorted that out.

As a default, is everyone able to follow the English without translation, if necessary?

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

We could ignore the French and just bring the interpreter to the table.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Joyce Murray]

The translators will be using your text and translating from the text because they can't catch your words orally.

Please commence. I appreciate your patience.

[Dr. Mihail Roco]

All right.

First of all, I would like to present an overview of different themes in the United States, and thereafter make some recommendations, some ideas for the future.

The 2011 presidential budget request provides around $1.8 billion for the National Nanotechnology Initiative. This support to 25 federal agencies is based on nanotechnology's potential to significantly improve our understanding and control of matter at the nano-scale, leading to a revolution in technology and industry for the benefit of society.

While NNI remains focused on basic research, infrastructure development, and technology transfer, the proposed investment for 2011 places an increased emphasis on innovations in support of national priorities. The NNI is also increasing its investments in nano-EHS by requesting $117 million, or 6.6% of the total budget.

More aptly, investment in this field for nano-EHS, since 2005, now totals more than $480 million. The three agencies making the most investment in this area are the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

NSF's portfolio is shaped by a long-term perspective in nanotechnology R and D. The investment in environmental and societal aspects of nanotechnology began in 2001. In fact, I have with me a so-called strategic view for ten years ahead that is still in application. It was prepared in 2001, and we are now preparing a new document for 2011 to 2020.

NSF has an overall budget request for nanotechnology of $400 million. For nano-EHS, it is $33 million, or about 8% of the total budget. It includes development of predictive methods for toxicity, for exposure. We have three dedicated centres at Rice University, Duke University, and the University of California, Los Angeles. We have two academic user facilities and about 60 smaller groups working in this field.

The National Institutes of Health has a budget of about $382 million, relatively close to NSF, in 2011. It sponsors three networks: one on excellence in nano-medicine, one on cancer research, and one on heart, lung, and blood.

The EPA has a budget request of about $20 million for nano-environmental, health, and safety research and regulatory activities.

What is new in 2011 is that both the Food and Drug Administration and the Consumer Product Safety Commission have been added to the NNI budget: for the Food and Drug Administration, $15 million for testing new materials or new products in nano; and for the Consumer Product Safety Commission, $2.2 million.

Collaborative activities play an increasingly important role among NNI agencies. Also, there is a lot of interaction at the international level, including with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's working party on manufactured nano-materials and the International Organization for Standardization.

The NNI activities are evaluated each year by Congress and the Office of Management and Budget, and every three years by the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and the National Research Council of the National Academies.

There are several needs with higher priorities for the next year: to continue to combine nano-EHS implications research with environmental and biomedical applications research. That means do not separate nano-EHS research from core research.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Joyce Murray]

Excuse me, Mr. Roco. If you can come to your concluding remarks, the other points can come out in the discussion.

Thank you.

[Dr. Mihail Roco]

I would like to say, in conclusion, that it's important to have an anticipatory, participatory, and adaptive governance approach to nanotechnology in order to capture the new developments and also to prepare people, tools, and organizations for the future.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Joyce Murray]

Thank you very much. Sorry about the confusion at the beginning.

[Dr. Mihail Roco]

No problem.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Joyce Murray]

By about halfway through, the translation was working as hoped for, so that means your comments during the course of the discussion will be able to be translated.

[Dr. Mihail Roco]

Also, I would like to mention that I sent a written statement with several diagrams, showing the trends in funding nano environmental health and safety and overall nano investments in the U.S. This will be translated in the next two or three days, as I understand.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Joyce Murray]

Thank you.

We will now have comments from the committee members, starting with Ms. McLeod.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I actually have two questions or comments, so I'll put them both on the table, and leave them open.

First, because I am someone who is somewhat new to the understanding of this issue, could we take an example of either a cosmetic or a food or something that's commonplace and follow it through from development into the product so I could understand the pathway of a nanoparticle in a cosmetic product or food?

Second, we have a local issue that has caused a great deal of angst in our community. They were looking at having a gasification process for creosote railway ties. Locally, the provincial Minister of the Environment approved it because of the emissions. A lot of the backlash from the community was related to the fact that while the emissions might be small to gasify creosote, we really don't know what the nanoparticles would be, and what the issues would be with the nanoparticles.

I guess I'd like to hear perspectives on both those trains of thought.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Joyce Murray]

Who among the visitors would like to take a shot at those questions?

Mr. Ostiguy.

[Claude Ostiguy]

I can try to answer at least part of the first question.

If you take, for example, titanium dioxide, which is used in sunscreens, when you use particles that are not in the nanometric size but that are larger, you have a cream that is white. When you decrease the size of the particle to the nanometric size, that cream can become completely colourless, so from the point of view of marketing, it is extremely interesting. Then, when you look at the efficiency of intercepting UV rays, the efficiency will increase with nanoparticles as compared to with micrometric particles. So you have an increase in the efficiency and also a benefit from the point of view of marketing.

This is applied on the skin. However, you can look at, for example, toxicity in the lungs. Regarding the toxicity of titanium dioxide, when you expose rats or animals to titanium dioxide through the lungs, it is normally considered to be a rather inert particle. When you decrease the size of the titanium dioxide to nanometric size, the toxicity increases enormously.

In the U.S. about three or four years ago, NIOSH--the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health--made recommendations that the standard for workers' exposure to titanium dioxide in the workplace be lowered from 1.5 milligrams per cubic metre down to 0.1 milligrams per cubic metre. This suggests that the toxicity of titanium dioxide would increase by a factor of 15, just due to the size of the particle. If you exposed a worker to the same mass through the lungs, you would substantially increase the toxicity.

What we find in the literature is that almost all of the particles that are in the nanometric size will be more toxic than will be the same mass of particle in micrometric size. So we have to take care of potential risks related to the size of these particles.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Joyce Murray]

Dr. Petersen, did you want to add to that?

[Dr. Nils Petersen]

Yes. I think you asked me about the pathway as well. What I wanted to add is that you can make nanoparticles in fundamentally two different ways. You can either grind things down, making them smaller and smaller as you go along, or you can make them by assembling things into particles of a certain size. The two things are different in the way you would actually make them and also the circumstances under which you would do them.

A specific example is Xerox, which makes toners for printers. Many years ago they started making a toner by simply taking the colourant and grinding it down, making smaller and smaller particles and going down into the micrometre scale. They then subsequently found that they could actually assemble that same kind of particle with much better precision by taking components and putting them together in a particular process. All of that is done in a manufacturing environment in which they of course try to make sure that there is minimal exposure to the people who do that. Once they've made it, they can then put it into the printer cassette, and that will go through and be used in a particular environment.

In the case of cosmetics, they take that nanoparticle and put it into the cream formulation at a factory site. Then it normally comes out to the consumer encapsulated or protected in one way or another.

In general, in those kinds of manufacturing environments the risks are at the start of the process, when you are making the particles and incorporating them into a material, and possibly at the end of the product's life, when you're disposing of it. It might then be released in ways that you might not have anticipated--for example, through the wearing down or opening of the cassette of toner or whatever.

I think those are the two areas. Most consumers would see a product in which nanoparticles are encapsulated or incorporated--maybe inside a cellphone, or something like that--and often not be exposed in that way.

I hope that addresses part of your question.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Joyce Murray]

Mr. Emond, you wanted to add to that.

[Dr. Claude Emond]

Yes, please.

I want to talk about your second question about commercialization. Commercialization is a little tricky in Canada compared to the United States, because in Canada you have the New Substances Assessment and Control Bureau, which is there to accept or refuse this new product. For example, if I come with a new product and I say it's not dangerous at all, the new substances office has to prove this is dangerous. If they don't have any proof, they have no choice but to accept it. What we have here—and we said this a couple of times—is we don't have all the pieces of the puzzle to correctly characterize nanotechnology and nanoparticles.

In the U.S., the EPA has to look at this commercial product. If they don't have enough information, they will return the folder to the company and say they need more experimental data to be able to assess this new commercial product. We don't have this procedure here. It's regulated by law, so I think something needs to be done to be sure we will protect Canadians.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Joyce Murray]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Malo.

[Luc Malo, Bloc, Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Do we know how micro-materials affect health and the environment? There is a lack of information on the effects of transforming micro-materials into nanomaterials. That is a first, relatively general question.

Ms. Maniet, you spoke to us about European regulations, which are much more stringent. I would like to know if that is only in terms of labelling or if that is also the case with the identification of hazardous products. You have the good fortune to be sitting directly beside the parliamentary secretary to the minister. He will be able to tell you whether the former Bill C-6 was re-introduced yesterday and provide you with much more specific information.

My final question is for Mr. Roco.

Given the amounts invested in the United States for research into determining the impact of nanotechnologies, I would like to know whether that research yielded interesting results.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Joyce Murray]

Mr. Malo, to whom was your first question directed, or was it general?

Does anybody want to take this?

Okay, Madam Maniet; go ahead.

[Françoise Maniet]

As for the impact of nanoparticles on health and the environment, given the number of studies that have been done, there is a scientific consensus that has existed for quite some yearsnow—perhaps Mr. Emond could confirm this—on the toxicity of certain nanoparticles, both for health and the environment. We know that this is certain. For most nanoparticles, there is, it is true, a great deal of uncertainty. I would like to remind you that we are talking about nanoparticles and nanotechnology, however, essentially, there are five that are the most often used in consumer products. These are nanoparticles of gold, silver, carbon, zinc and selecium. So, as Mr. Petersen said, we can zero in on the problem to some extent, although everything depends on the way that they are used. Already we can start investigating toxicity based on the use of these five nanoparticles in consumer products. Nevertheless, we are no longer simply asking questions; now there are some certainties. We have a lot of questions and many uncertainties, but as far as toxicity is concerned, we do already have some certainties.

The European legislation is also stricter, for example, in the area of chemicals, because the manufacturers and importers there have primary responsibility. As Mr. Emond, said, in Canada, it is primarily up to the government to prove that substances available on the market are toxic. In Europe, they are starting to make the producers and importers prove the safety of their products, whether they be chemicals that are normal in size or at the nanoparticle level.

There is another major difference: In Europe, there no longer is a distinction between novel substances and existing substances, meaning that all substances are subjected to the same obligations, or as in Canada, the obligations are much more restrictive for producers of novel substances. In my opinion, this is also hampering technological innovation, since those producers who wish to innovate and invent novel substances that are less polluting or toxic must comply with stricter requirements than those who have been marketing substances that have been around for 20 or 30 years.

These are but a few examples. There are, obviously, others. What I wanted to say, to qualify my comments, is that even if these laws are enforced in Europe and in Canada, the production thresholds that are required to provide information to the government are too high to pertain to nanoparticles. Consequently, in both Europe and Canada, producers are told that if they produce so many tonnes per year of a certain substance, they have to provide information regarding toxicity. In many cases, these ten-tonne or one-tonne thresholds per year are too high to be able to apply to nanoparticles given their small sizes. Consequently, this is not a good approach.

As Mr. Ostiguy said, we must stop thinking in terms of volumes but rather, for instance, in terms of surface. That was what I was trying to say earlier. In actual practice, even in Europe, most nanoparticles slipped through the REACH regulatory safety net, because they are not produced in a volume that exceeds the established threshold. So that is the situation and I hope that this is clear.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Joyce Murray]

Thank you.

Dr. Roco, you also had something to add.

[Dr. Mihail Roco]

May I respond to the question that I was asked?