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CNTs Mimic Asbestos

Posted June 14, 2008 8:43 AM

The dialogue about the possible health risks of nanotechnology has been ongoing. Now, a new study indicates that long, narrow carbon nanotubes (CNTs) behave like asbestos fibers in mice, mimicking the inflammation effects. This means that the CNTs could potentially trigger mesothelioma, a type of lung cancer that can take 30 or more years to develop. Meanwhile, computer simulations show that buckyballs dissolve in cell membranes and pass through to reform on the other side, which may also hold health implications. Could these possible health risks change the way your company develops or uses nanotechnologies?

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Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 88
#1

Re: CNTs Mimic Asbestos

06/20/2008 8:14 PM

Do to my job in research and process developments, I have be using asbesto as globes, plaques, clothing , etc for 45 years and I have never seen a case neither sick my self -do to cancer induced by it-

Seems more that it is kind of waist of time to talk about "POSSIBILITIES OF HEALTH RISK" -without any convincent proof yet- by some pseudoresearchers that like to be in the news- speculations only that damages the image of any asbestoproduc and nanoproduct not born yet.

Please do not MIMIC those pseudoresearchers. Do not spread dust, keep quite.

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Guru
Spain - Member - New Member Engineering Fields - Nuclear Engineering - New Member

Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Madrid, Spain
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#2

Re: CNTs Mimic Asbestos

06/24/2008 2:29 AM

I'm not an expert at all in health, but: Just one exposition to asbestos can produce a cancer 30 years later? How can anybody be sure the source of cancer was that exposition 30 years before and not any of the thousands activities performed in such time?

The information of the "potential" risk of CNTs with a 30 years delay seems too exaggerated, and reminds me some similar cases with some sweetener which made a similar big noise, and the results were that if you drink 1000 liters of sweetened refreshment per day during 300 years you may develop cancer....(No comment)

I don't know the potential risk of CNTs or buckyballs, but I think researchers should be more prudent before frightening people.

Metals have been used from thousands years to kill people and nobody ask to forbid the metals research. Even in the fact that CNTs would cause cancer in a short period, this would produce rules on CNTs but not in nanotechnologies in general.

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