Rice University’s new initiative aimed at generating a positive public dialogue about nanotechnology seems to have run into a little difficulty before it’s even got going. I don’t normally have a great deal of sympathy for the ETC group, but their action in withdrawing from this organisation is entirely reasonable and understandable. The fact that funding for the organisation comes largely from industry sends a very negative message about how impartial it is likely to be, but the problems run deeper. The agenda for the council seems to be dominated by questions of nanoparticle toxicity and regulation. It is not just Drexlerites and an anti-globalisation activists who think that the potential implications of nanotechnology, both positive and negative, run a lot deeper than this one immediate, short term issue.
As for the rest of us outside the USA, we can only look on at the “International” in the International Council on Nanotechnology with the same wry smile that the “World” in the baseball World Series provokes. Realists appreciate that the FDA has an influence well beyond the shores of the USA, where its formal writ runs. But could we not have some recognition that there are other sovereign domains outside the USA whose regulatory authorities also might have something to say about nanotechnology? And that this kind of venture might have something to learn from initiatives in other countries, like the UK’s Royal Society study, which somehow managed to avoid the sort of inept mishandling that has already led to such unnecessary polarisation.