Iskander: I'm Dr. John Iskander, welcome to CDC Beyond the Data.
In association with today's encore presentation
on Nano technology for Public Health Grand Rounds,
we're very pleased to have Dr. Paul Schulte joining us
from CDC's National Institute
for Occupational Safety and Health.
Paul could you reorient our audience a little bit
to Nano technology as Nano technology has now moved
from science fiction very much into the real world.
When we say Nano technology how small is small and what kind
of industries are we talking about?
Schulte: Well, one nanometer is the size
of ten hydrogen atoms, put side by side.
So you get the idea that we're talking
about something that's extremely small.
Something that's generally only visible by electron microscopes.
So, ten hydrogen atoms side by side would be one nanometer.
If you recall from the presentation that I did,
as you cut matter down from large pieces to small pieces,
when you get down around sixty nanometers,
you start to see new scientific properties.
Things are more conductive, they're more magnetic,
they're stronger, they're more reactive and you can do a lot
of things with that, you can make a lot
of different products.
And so Nano technology really pervades almost all industrial
sectors, and essentially, Nano materials will be
in almost every kind of product that's manufactured
in the future.
Right now we see Nano materials in automobile side panels,
we see them in clothes, we see them in concrete, in food,
in every different kind of electronics
that you can think of.
So there's a wide range of uses of Nano materials
and they're also used in medicine as possible ways
of reaching target, target cells, specifically
without hurting the surrounding area.
Iskander: So, very much a part of everyday life and moving
into more, almost science fiction like applications,
and I think you did a very good job of talking
about why we might want to use some
of these materials, some of the benefits.
But, I understand there are also concerns for some
of the workers exposed to these materials.
Can you tell me a little bit about what we've learned
about that and maybe some of what we still have to learn?
Schulte: Well, we're about ten years into the commercialization
of Nano technologies, so, for, in the 90's there was a lot
of research, but products started coming
out in the late 90's early 2000's.
We're now at two thousand and thirteen, there's one source
that says there's over 1600 commercial products
that are on the market.
Workers have to make all those products;
workers are also the people who do the research.
So all along the lifecycle of Nano materials,
from the laboratory to manufacturer
to taking the manufactured Nano materials and putting them
in something, to the end of life, workers are involved.
So, over these last ten years, we're starting
to see a number of things.
We're starting to see, one,
a buildup of scientific literature showing
that certain Nano materials can be hazardous.
And, just to remind you, when we talk about Nano materials,
there's a universe of potential types of Nano materials,
so there's not just one.
They're all different sizes and shapes
and have different surface characteristics.
So it's hard, the language makes it difficult to talk about them
because it's not one entity, it's a diversity of entities.
But, in the last ten years,
some types of Nano materials have been shown
to be hazards in animal studies.
Also in the last ten years we're starting to see literature
that shows occupational exposures are occurring
in various industries.
There are no known human cases of disease as a result
of exposures to Nano materials at this point.
So we're making all our judgments off of,
extrapolating from animal studies.
What we've seen in animal studies is
that some Nano materials cause respiratory problems.
They can have cardiovascular effects.
They can, certainly we're concerned
in the occupational environment of them being breathed in
and then they can get into the blood, they can get
into the systemic organs.
But, mostly what we've seen are respiratory
and cardiovascular effects that are of the greatest concern
in the animals and we project that they could be
that workers exposed to these materials could have risks
of those effects.
Iskander: Okay, so for workers in these industries or for,
you know, people in public health
or in clinical medicine you know dealing with these workers,
dealing with these occupational health issues,
are there some prevention or remediation strategies
that seem reasonable given the admittedly incomplete state
of evidence?
Are there some prevention measures?
Schulte: Yes, we've had over a hundred years dealing
with fine dusts and powders in industry,
thinking of ways to control them.
Particularly in the pharmaceutical industry
where we have biologically active dusts and powders,
we know how to control these kinds of materials.
So that's the good news.
While there may be some potential hazard with some types
of Nano materials, we generally know how to control them.
They follow the same laws of aerosol physics
that any other particle does.
In some cases they even behave as gases.
But, in both cases, we know how to control them,
as a gas or as a particle.
And so indeed we can use what we've learned
over the last hundred years
and control most kinds of operations.
Now the thing is we don't know specifically
if there're any limitations to that,
any factors that might make that more difficult.
But our best assessment thus far is
that these are controllable in most situations.
Iskander: Are we talking about things
like shielding respiratory protection?
Are these the type of measures we're talking about?
Schulte: Precisely, enclosures, ventilation,
personal protective equipment.
In some cases Nano materials are shielded from the workers
because of need for pristine environments
for them to exist in.
So that also has the benefit of protecting the workers.
But we know that we can make enclosures of processies.
We can use ventilation, different kinds of ventilation
and that we can use personal protective equipment.
Iskander: So, really, a fascinating topic.
For those in our audience who want more detailed information,
can you recommend a couple of sources for them to seek out?
Schulte: Well, certainly if you go on the CDC website and click
on Nano Technology and access the NIOSH pages
on Nano Technology, you'll get all the work
that we've done including a progress report
that we've published last December
on all our progress made since 2004.
So that's a good overview.
We also have other kinds of reports,
so that would be a good place to start and that also links
to other organizations that will have information as well.
Iskander: Thank you very much Dr. Schulte.
Please join us next month for another segment
of CDC's Beyond the Data.
Thank you for joining us.