Denmark: experts say nanotechnologies could be as dangerous to workers as asbestos

Booming in Denmark, nanotechnologies and nano-products is revolutionizing a wide range of industrial products and processes, from food packaging to surface treatment, to the textile, chemical, pharmaceutical or plastic industry. It seems that the number of nano-products put on the market doubles every year, but their innocuousness on human health and the environment isn’t known. In 2007, a key Scandinavian report on nanotechnologies in northern countries, published by the National Research Centre for the Working Environment (NFA, Det Nationale Forskningscenter for Arbejdsmiljø), pointed to the blazing lack of research on the safety of nanoproducts. For the International day on health and safety at work (April 28), organized by the International Labor Organization (ILO) dedicated to the “emerging risks and new approaches to prevention in a changing world of work,” including nanotechnologies, LO’s weekly newspaper, Ugebrevet A4, took stock, last week, of prevention and safety in Denmark in this area.
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ducts. For the International day on health and safety at work (April 28), organized by the International Labor Organization (ILO) dedicated to the “emerging risks and new approaches to prevention in a changing world of work,” including nanotechnologies, LO’s weekly newspaper, Ugebrevet A4, took stock, last week, of prevention and safety in Denmark in this area.

Parallel with the asbestos scandal. According to the NFA’s research manager, Otto Melchior Poulsen, “We can, on scientific basis, draw a

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