Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T04:15:21.044Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Using Expert Elicitation to Prioritize Resource Allocation for Risk Identification for Nanosilver

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Emma Fauss ,
Michael E. Gorman  and
Nathan Swami
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Many of today’s uses of nanotechnology and nanomaterials can comfortably fall under the current regulatory system with minor adjustments. However, the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies has pointed out that the U.S. regulatory system is not prepared to deal with successive generations of nanotechnology and emergent technologies. Nanotechnology presents a challenge. The current regulatory standards and methods are no longer sufficient to help ensure the public’s safety. It is an area of high uncertainty in which environment, health, and safety information is scarce; there is no single index such as concentration to measure toxicity; standards do not yet exist; the ready environmental transport of nanomaterials can increase the chance of exposure; real-time monitoring is not available; and nanomaterials might have systemlevel human and environmental risks. Thus, there is a need for a new and improved oversight system. Within this system there is a need for quickly assessing risks of emergent technologies so that informed policy decisions can be made.

Type
Symposium
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 37 , Issue 4 , Winter 2009 , pp. 770 - 780
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Davies, J. C., “Nanotechnology Oversight: An Agenda for the New Administration,” PEN 13 (July 2008).Google Scholar
Wardak, A., Gorman, M. E., Swami, N. and Deshpande, S., “Identification of Risks in the Life-cycle of Nanotechnology-based Products,” Journal of Industrial Ecology 12, no. 3 (2008): 435–448.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuhn, T. S., The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962).Google Scholar
Galison, P., Image & Logic: A Material Culture of Microphysics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997).Google Scholar
Gorman, M. E., “Combining the Social and the Nano: A Model for Converging Technologies,” in Roco, M. C. and Bainbridge, W. S., eds., Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance: Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information Technology and Cognitive Science (Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer, 2003): 367–373; Gorman, M. E., “Expanding the Trading Zones for Convergent Technologies,” in Roco, M. C. and Bainbridge, W. S., eds., Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance: Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information Technology and Cognitive Science (Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer, 2003): 424–428.Google Scholar
O'Leary, M., Orikowski, W. and Yates, J., “Distributed Work Over the Centuries: Trust and Control in the Hudson's Bay Company, 1670–1826,” in Hinds, P. and Kiesler, S., eds., Distributed Work (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002): 27–54.Google Scholar
Collins, H. M. and Evans, R., “The Third Wave of Science Studies,” Social Studies of Science 32, no. 2 (2002): 235–296.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collins, H., Gravity's Shadow: The Search for Gravitational Waves (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004); Collins, H. M., Evans, R., Rieiro, R. and Hall, M., “Experiments with Interactional Expertise,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 37, no. A4 (2006): 656-674.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allenby, B. R., “Earth Systems Engineering and Management,” Technology and Society 19, no. 4 (2000/2001): 10–24.Google Scholar
Renn, O. and Roco, M. C., “Nanotechnology and the Need for Risk Governance,” Journal of Nanoparticle Research 8, no. 2 (2005): 153–191.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hooper, B. P. and Lant, C., “Integrated, Adaptive Watershed Management,” in Slocombe, D. S. and Hanna, K. S., eds., Integrated Resource and Environmental Management: Concepts and Practice (Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford University Press, 2007): 97–118.Google Scholar
Folke, C., Hahn, T., Olsson, P. and Norberg, J., “Adaptive Governance of Socialecological Systems,” Annual Review of Environment and Resources 30 (2005): 441–473, at 447.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plowright, R. K., Sokolow, S. H., Gorman, M. E., Daszak, P. and Foley, J. E., “Causal Inference in Disease Ecology: Investigating Ecological Drivers of Disease Emergence,” Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 6, no. 8 (2008): 420–429.; Cabezas, H., Pawlowski, C. W., Mayer, A. L. and Hoagland, N. T., “Sustainability: Ecological, Social, Economic and Systems Perspectives,” Clean Technology and Environmental Policy 5, nos. 3-4 (2003): 167-180.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gorman, M. E., Wardak, A., Fauss, E. and Swami, N., “A Framework for Using Nanotechnology To Improve Water Quality,” in Savage, N., Diallo, M., Duncan, J., Street, A. and Sustich, R., eds., Nanotechology Applications for Clean Water (Norwich, NY: William Andrew, Applied Science Publishers, 2008): 491–507.Google Scholar
See the website of the Center for Nanotechnology in Society at Arizona State University (http://cns.asu.edu/) for more details on adaptive management and updates on their progress developing strategies and tools.Google Scholar
Kandlikar, M., Ramachandran, G., Maynard, A., Murdock, B. and Toscano, W. A., “Health Risk Assessment for Nanoparticles: A Case for Using Expert Judgment,” Journal of Nanoparticle Research 9, no. 1 (2006): 137–156; Morgan, K., “Development of a Preliminary Framework for Informing the Risk Analysis and Risk Management of Nanoparticles,” Risk Analysis 23, no. 6 (2005): 1621-1635.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ericsson, K. A. and Simon, H. A., Protocol Analysis: Verbal Reports as Data (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1984); Ericsson, K. A., The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Gorman, M. E., Tweney, R. D., Gooding, D. C., Kincannon, A. and Tweney, R. D. et al., Scientific and Technological Thinking (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2005).Google Scholar
Kuzma, J., Paradise, J., Ramachandran, G., Kim, J. A., Kokotovich, A. and Wolf, S. M., “An Integrated Approach to Oversight Assessment for Emergent Technologies,” Risk Analysis 28, no. 5 (2008): 1197–1219; Paradise, J., Wolf, S. M., Ramachandran, G., Kokkoli, E., Hall, R. and Kuzma, J., “Developing Oversight Frameworks for Nanobiotechnology,” Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology 9, no. 1 (2008): 399-416.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
See Kuzma, et al., supra note 18.Google Scholar
See Wardak, et al., supra note 2.Google Scholar
This is the first publicly available online inventory of nanotechnology-based consumer products. The Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, available at <http://www.nanotechproject.org/inventories/consumer/analysis_draft/> (last visited August 18, 2009).+(last+visited+August+18,+2009).>Google Scholar
Wardak, A., Gorman, M. E., Swami, N. and Deshpande, S., “Identification of Risks in the Life Cycle of Nanotechnology-Based Products,” Journal of Industrial Ecology 12, no. 3 (2008): 435–448.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
The University of Virginia's IRB granted this research an IRB exemption because all we were doing is asking experts to apply their expertise to a set of products. All participants were showed notes and results from their interviews and were offered a chance to amend or amplify their remarks.Google Scholar
Fauss, E. K., “Risk Analysis of Nanotechnology through Expert Elicitation: A Silver Nanotechnology Case Study,” M.S. Thesis, University of Virginia (August, 2008).Google Scholar
Forester, J., Bley, D., Cooper, S., Lois, E., Siu, N., Kolaczkowski, A. et al., “Expert Elicitation Approach for Performing ATHENA Quantification,” Reliability Engineering and System Safety 83, no. 2 (2004): 207–220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
See Fauss, , supra note 24.Google Scholar
40 CFR Ch. 1, Parts 150–189, available at <http://www.epa.gov/oecaagct/lfra.html> (last visited June 9, 2009).+(last+visited+June+9,+2009).>Google Scholar
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Pesticide Registration: Clarification for Ion Generating Equipment,” EPA-HQ-OPP-2007-0949, FRL-8149-4 (September 21, 2007), available at <http://www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/EPA-PEST/2007/September/Day-21/p18591.htm> (last visited June 9, 2009).+(last+visited+June+9,+2009).>Google Scholar
International Center for Technology Assessment, “Executive Summary: Legal Petition Challenges EPA's Failure to Regulate Environmental and Health Threats from Nano-Silver,” (May 1, 2008), available at <http://www.icta.org/global/actions.cfm?page=15&type=364&topic=8> (last visited June 9, 2009). (last visited June 9, 2009).' href=https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=International+Center+for+Technology+Assessment,+“Executive+Summary:+Legal+Petition+Challenges+EPA's+Failure+to+Regulate+Environmental+and+Health+Threats+from+Nano-Silver,”+(May+1,+2008),+available+at++(last+visited+June+9,+2009).>Google Scholar
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Petition for Rule-making Requesting EPA Regulate Nanoscale Silver Products as Pesticides; Extension of Comment Period,” EPA- HQ- OPP-2008-0650; fr14ja09–60, (January 14, 2009), available at <http://www.epa.gov/EPA-PEST/2009/January/Day-14/p622.htm> (last visited June 9, 2009).+(last+visited+June+9,+2009).>Google Scholar
Maynard, A., “Nanotechnology: A Research Strategy for Addressing Risk,” PEN 3 (July 2006).Google Scholar