AgNano, the Construction of Occupational Health Standards: A Status Update
The regulation of chemical substances involves a negotiation between social actors to translate controversial scientific evidence about risks into legal norms. This chapter addresses the discussion elicited by a public consultation on a voluntary regulation guide on silver nanoparticles (AgNP) in wo...
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| Autores principales: | , |
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| Formato: | Capítulo de libro |
| Lenguaje: | inglés |
| Publicado: |
IntechOpen
2021
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| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/75104 |
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| Sumario: | The regulation of chemical substances involves a negotiation between social actors to translate controversial scientific evidence about risks into legal norms. This chapter addresses the discussion elicited by a public consultation on a voluntary regulation guide on silver nanoparticles (AgNP) in workplaces. It examines the comments made from 2016 to 2018 by diverse social actors – business representatives, non-governmental organizations (NGO), and independent researchers – to two successive draft versions of a Recommended Exposure Limit (REL) in working environments with AgNP. The REL is a voluntary guideline on permissible exposure limits elaborated by the NIOSH in the U.S. The methodology used was a qualitative content analysis, structured upon a historical and sociotechnical contextualization of nanotechnologies carried out through literature review. The findings show how different social actors position themselves in the controversy, revealing a pattern of behavior consistent with their position in the research, production, and commercialization of this new nanomaterial. While a group of actors, aligned with the interests of AgNP producers, proposed the restriction of mandatory and AgNP-specific regulation, another group of more heterogeneous actors, identified with the interests of workers and consumers, demanded more scientific and technical information and stricter health protection measures. |
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| ISBN: | 978-1-83968-659-7 |
| DOI: | 10.5772/intechopen.96104 |