Week in Review

Whatever it is you may celebrate at this time of year, we at the Women’s Bioethics Project wish you a happy and healthy holiday! Here is our week in review:

~ Rat embryonic stem cells created; genetically engineered rats should follow soon, providing new models of human disease.

~ AAAS workshop report recommends how to address education for scientists about biosecurity and the dual use dilemma for federal government, research institutions, and scientific organizations (co-authored by Mark Frankel).

~ An analysis of biosecurity policy in the context of gene synthesis. How much is too much regulation?

~ Biodefense Research: A Win-Win Challenge. An editorial proposing the optimal level of oversight of life-sciences research—coauthored by a number of National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) members, including Susan Ehrlich.

~Pfizer must pay $38.7M for stealing data from research center. Hope it was worth it, guys.

~Top 10 hospital hazards linked to medical devices. This one’s a delight. They’ve even got a special name for articles left behind in you during surgery. Retained medical devices and “unretrieved fragments.”

~ Oregon Health & Science University study shows that a nurse-managed, computerized system extends the lives of elderly patients.

~ Stopping ovarian cancer by blocking proteins coded by notorious gene.

~ FDA verdict could determine future of personalized medicine.

~ Mice that inhaled cigarette smoke 5 hours daily avoided lung damage by ingesting a drug. Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em? No ~ Still not a good idea.

~ Genes affect tissues differently—and this could affect how likely a person is to get a disease.

~ Bowel cancer link to stem cells.

~ Even with additional education, the public may not trust and accept that nanotech is safe. No small task ahead of nanotech to gain acceptance and support.

~ AstraZeneca considering move into “biosimilars.” Could be part of a trend—Merck and Lilly have revealed similar plans.

~ State cord blood bank nearing reality in Indiana.

~ Rep. Pete Stark (D - Calif) says no health reform vote is likely in ’09. Just too many other things to get to.

~ Budget cuts threaten disaster plans for pandemics, natural disasters, and bioterrorism. The sad irony is progress had been made in the quality of plans.

~ Speaking of pandemics, HHS says health, emergency staff should get drugs first in the event of a such public health challenge.

~ Next steps for progressive stem cell politics.

~ Obama’s stimulus plan to include healthcare IT.

~ Leaflets accompanying new prescriptions inconsistently provide consumers with key safety data and other information. Apparently, the quality of these things is all over the map, and not regulated.

~ Some toddler deaths from cold drugs due to nontherapeutic use. In other words, the drugs were deliberately given to sedate or kill (as opposed to accidental overdoses).

~ Wine may boost omega-3 levels, despite fish intake or lack thereof. Well, cheers to you this holiday season!

~ Strange sleep disorders. Yes, folks, nightmares can kill. And REM sleep disorders could be an early sign of Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s.

~ Incest may not be best, but marriage bans should be rolled back, scientists say. (Any Biblical prohibitions notwithstanding.)

[Thank you to Lisa von Biela, JD candidate, 2009, UMN, Editor of the BioBlurb, from which this content is partially taken and edited. BioBlurb is a weekly electronic publication of the American Bar Association's Committee on Biotechnology, Section of Science & Technology Law. Archived issues of the BioBlurb, as well as further information about the Committee on Biotechnology, are available here.]

NanoCosmetics? Really?

As I'm sure every student remembers, when you're in the middle of studying for a test, you often end up doing the most counter-intuitive thing to studying: you surf the net in search of procrastination. This, I admit, seemed like a much better idea than trying to decide whether or not Emily had a justified true belief that there was a cat in her house, and I somehow ended up on the most fascinating of NPR stories, about nano-cosmetics.

It would seem that the newest thing in anti-aging is nanosomes. Nanospheres. Buckyballs. Some of the ingredients are just smaller versions of chemicals that have been used for years, like nano-particles of zinc oxide, but others are genuinely new, like buckyball enhanced day cream; apparently the buckyballs are an anti-oxidant that prevent skin aging?

The concern, however, isn't minor. No one knows for sure what nano-particles will do; in many cases chemical compounds that are familiar at a larger level take on new properties when they become so small (this is, after all, part of the appeal of nanotechnology). Another concern is one that admittedly sort of freaks me out with it's unknown-ness: can nano-particles penetrate your skin? Is that day cream really seeping into your tissues, oozing into your blood and muscle and ick? (It's like the beginnings of a Robin Cook horror novel...) And this isn't just some random, too much horror-scifi reading as a kid concern; Sally Tinkle, a researcher at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in North Carolina, has shown in her lab that at least some nano-particles can seep through the skin, which means they could potentially get into our blood stream or interfere with our immune system. (I have the sudden urge to check all my cosmetic products for nanoanything...)

Of course, cosmetic companies point out that if what they were using in their products wasn't safe, the FDA wouldn't let it go on the market. But the FDA typically only investigates cosmetics if safety issues come up after the product is on the market; unlike drugs, there is no safety level testing, studies, or trials that have to be done on cosmetics, and no final approval or rejection process prior to marketing.

But at least some people are making an effort to track the claims of nanotech on the market. The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars has a Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies where they track all of the supposed nanotech out and about in our products, in everything from iPhones to face cream. They make this information available to the public, via their website, and it's incredibly easy to lose a few hours of time there browsing and marveling at all of the nanotech that has quietly become part of the marketplace.

In the meantime, I think I have something else to add to my labels watch list aside from high fructose corn syrup - it might be a slightly luddite reaction, I'll grant you that, but the idea of unknown nano-particles being a part of my beauty routine just makes me hesitant in a way that only being raised on a lot of science fiction can probably explain.
-Kelly