[Guidelines for evaluation of the safety of nanomaterials]

Due to the current intensive development of nanotechnology all over the world, there is a considerable increase in human exposure to nanoparticles and nanomaterials and their environmental entry and accumulation. A number of the guidelines of the Russian Consumer Surveillance Agency emphasize that the potential risk of nanomaterials to human health and the environment is to be characterized since they have quite other physicochemical properties and a biological effect that the substances in their usual physicochemical state. The paper discusses a ways of entering nanoparticles into the body and their potential toxicity, as well as the procedure for assessing a risk associated with the production, use, and recycling of nanoparticles and nanomaterials.