Mark Henderson
London Times
Sunday, January 10th, 2010
The secretive attitude of food companies towards nanotechnology
research risks starting a consumer backlash against products that could
improve health and reduce waste, a parliamentary inquiry has found.
Nanomaterials that are 800 times finer than a human hair have the
potential to deliver foods that are very low in fat and salt and
packaging that changes colour when food is spoiled because of the
strange properties of molecules at such a small scale. Their
development, however, has also raised safety concerns because their
effects on humans are poorly understood.
These fears have inspired a culture of secrecy about nanotechnology
in the food industry because it is worried about a repeat of the GM
crop safety scare, according to a report from the House of Lords
Science and Technology Committee. This lack of transparency could
encourage exactly the sort of mistrust that companies hope to avoid.
The committee also found significant gaps in scientific
understanding of the toxicology of nanomaterials, which need to be
addressed urgently with new research so that they can be regulated
effectively.
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