Societal Implication of Nanotechnology and Risk Assessment of Nanoparticles Available to Purchase

Risk assessment of nanoparticles (NP) has become a major issue in a worldwide scale these days. However, no apparent harmful effects on human and environment due to NP are reported until now. There is neither harmful inhalation criterion of NP for humans nor sufficient data for risk assessment related to NP. Public’s concern is how they could conduct prior risk assessment to avoid unexpected disasters caused by NP. Therefore, it is not easy to discuss about the risk assessment of NP directly. Therefore, in this report issues such as (a) reason why USA set societal implication of nanotechnology in National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), (b) how other countries followed USA and (c) the present status of their activities are introduced. And finally, the importance of the international collaboration for the construction of database, risk assessment framework etc. are discussed.