Government officials in Germany have reported what appears to be the first health-related recall of a nanotechnology product, raising a potential public perception problem for the rapidly growing but still poorly understood field of science.

At least 77 people reported severe respiratory problems over a one-week period at the end of March -- including six who were hospitalized with pulmonary edema, or fluid in the lungs -- after using a "Magic Nano" bathroom cleansing product, according to the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment in Berlin.

Read more... (Washington Post)

Thanks Pat!

I still cannot understand how people in responsible positions can allow products that can adversely affect our health and the environment over the short and/or long term.

Nanotechnology is one of the most promising new technologies, likely to have a huge effect on our lives.

But not quite understood yet, nano products should not be released into the environment.

Having said that, technological and medical advances would be exteremely limited if everything had to be tested as rigorously as some people demand.

We learn from experimentation. I guess the question is, who do we experiment on? The general public? The open environment?

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There is another point here too that I think may have been missed.. this is a cleaner, therefore most if it will go down the drain (yes I know its been recalled, but future uses), that means it will almost always go to a water treatment planet, I do not think current water technologies are able to removed that with the current type of floc process they use to remove suspended matter from the water being treated..

That means, if those nano particles are not removed from the water, they in turn will go back out as potable drinking water to the city they came from.. you have to wonder what the long term health effects of this would be after being ingested, granted the PPM would be extremely low at current.. but, what about the newer products yet to be released, thus adding more to the PPM count?

I dont know what it would take to filter/remove these nano products out of the water system, I am not even sure it could be removed once it was introduced.