ECONOMIC OUTLOOK: Reports Call for Nanotech Regs.

Industries In Transition, February, 2003

Two recently issued publications, one by the Canadian ETC Group and the other by the Better Regulation Task Force of the U.K. government, make strong calls for the regulation of nanotechnology research and production.

"The world's most powerful emerging technology is developing in an almost-total political and regulatory vacuum," says Pat Mooney, executive director of ETC Group. "Public and private research at the nanoscale is evolving beneath the radar screen of civil society and government regulators."

In an 80-page document entitled The Big Down that was introduced in January at the World Social Forum in Brazil, ETC Group tackles the subject of nanotechnology, identifying risks and ultimately posing four major policy recommendations, the most...