Occupational Safety and Health, School of Basic Sciences, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland.
Part Fibre Toxicol. 2010 Dec 10;7:40. doi: 10.1186/1743-8977-7-40.
Despite numerous discussions, workshops, reviews and reports about responsible development of nanotechnology, information describing health and environmental risk of engineered nanoparticles or nanomaterials is severely lacking and thus insufficient for completing rigorous risk assessment on their use. However, since preliminary scientific evaluations indicate that there are reasonable suspicions that activities involving nanomaterials might have damaging effects on human health; the precautionary principle must be applied. Public and private institutions as well as industries have the duty to adopt preventive and protective measures proportionate to the risk intensity and the desired level of protection. In this work, we present a practical, 'user-friendly' procedure for a university-wide safety and health management of nanomaterials, developed as a multi-stakeholder effort (government, accident insurance, researchers and experts for occupational safety and health). The process starts using a schematic decision tree that allows classifying the nano laboratory into three hazard classes similar to a control banding approach (from Nano 3--highest hazard to Nano1--lowest hazard). Classifying laboratories into risk classes would require considering actual or potential exposure to the nanomaterial as well as statistical data on health effects of exposure. Due to the fact that these data (as well as exposure limits for each individual material) are not available, risk classes could not be determined. For each hazard level we then provide a list of required risk mitigation measures (technical, organizational and personal). The target 'users' of this safety and health methodology are researchers and safety officers. They can rapidly access the precautionary hazard class of their activities and the corresponding adequate safety and health measures. We succeed in convincing scientist dealing with nano-activities that adequate safety measures and management are promoting innovation and discoveries by ensuring them a safe environment even in the case of very novel products. The proposed measures are not considered as constraints but as a support to their research. This methodology is being implemented at the Ecole Polytechnique de Lausanne in over 100 research labs dealing with nanomaterials. It is our opinion that it would be useful to other research and academia institutions as well.
尽管已经进行了多次讨论、研讨会、审查和报告，讨论如何负责任地开发纳米技术，但关于工程纳米粒子或纳米材料的健康和环境风险的信息仍然严重缺乏，因此不足以完成对其使用进行严格的风险评估。然而，由于初步科学评估表明，有合理的怀疑认为涉及纳米材料的活动可能对人类健康产生有害影响，因此必须应用预防原则。公共和私营机构以及工业界有责任采取与风险强度和预期保护水平相称的预防和保护措施。在这项工作中，我们提出了一种实用的、“用户友好”的大学范围内纳米材料安全和健康管理程序，该程序是作为多方利益攸关方的努力（政府、事故保险公司、研究人员和职业安全与健康专家）开发的。该过程首先使用一个示意性决策树，允许将纳米实验室分为三个危险等级，类似于控制带方法（从纳米 3-最高危险到纳米 1-最低危险）。将实验室分类为风险等级需要考虑对纳米材料的实际或潜在暴露，以及暴露对健康影响的统计数据。由于这些数据（以及每种材料的暴露限值）不可用，因此无法确定风险等级。对于每个危险级别，我们随后提供了所需风险缓解措施（技术、组织和个人）的列表。该安全和健康方法的目标“用户”是研究人员和安全官员。他们可以快速访问其活动的预防危害等级以及相应的适当安全和健康措施。我们成功地说服了从事纳米活动的科学家，充分的安全措施和管理通过确保他们在非常新颖的产品情况下也能处于安全的环境，从而促进了创新和发现。所提出的措施不被视为限制，而是作为对他们研究的支持。该方法正在洛桑联邦理工学院的 100 多个研究纳米材料的实验室中实施。我们认为，它对其他研究和学术机构也将是有用的。
