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April 23, 2004 — When nano meets the general public, it isn’t always pretty. That’s why Clayton Teague has both a tough and rewarding job ahead of him. As director of the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office, it’s his job to handle “public outreach” for the U.S. government’s nanotechnology program.
As the public becomes more aware of nanotechnology, Teague’s job turns even more challenging. One day the general-interest media are hyping the wonders of nanotech, the next day it’s denigrated as a polluter that preys on lab rats and fish.
I spoke to Teague recently at the National Nanotechnology Initiative’s annual conference in Washington, where nanotech’s public image was very much on everybody’s mind. Here’s an edited excerpt from our discussion.
Small Times: Are we going to see any change in the public face of the NNI or the NNCO?
Clayton Teague: Well, we definitely are charged with responsibility in the bill — and I think that everybody realizes it’s important — with more of some level of public outreach, of just trying to communicate to the public the benefits of the technology, as well as making sure that we do it in a really responsible way, that people realize that we need to do the things that will make it safe for the public and safe for the environment.
ST: Have you looked across the pond in Europe and learned the lessons from what happened with genetically modified organisms and the MMR vaccine?
Teague: Oh, everybody, I assure you, is keenly aware of those things. I think it’s something we’ve got to be very careful about.
ST: Do you think it’s almost too late? You’ve got this chemistry meeting in Anaheim, where the media walked away with, “Buckyballs kill fish.”
Teague: My philosophy is — and nobody’s told me not to do that — is that I think we want to be as candid as we can about things. That’s the reason I showed the current toxicology studies. These are the things that we know. These have been reported. And yet we also know from a lot of toxicology experts that they are very preliminary data.
Right now, one of the real concerns is making sure that we get this issue, the implications of nanotechnology for public health and the environment, that is probably going to be something we need to put some money into.
ST: That’s separate from the societal and ethical issues. People sometimes confuse the two.
Teague: You’re right. They do. Very much so. Ethical, legal, social and workforce issues. That’s different from the health issue, and probably public health and environmental.
ST: So, priority number one for you is not only discovering the health and biological impacts, but also getting the message out about what we know.
Teague: Yes. I wouldn’t say that’s my number-one priority, but it certainly is going to be high on the agenda for a little while. I think one reason that GMO went awry is that, in some senses, anytime that scientists dismiss the concerns of people, it’s a mistake. Because the concerns are real. Scientists may know that they’re not real, but this knowledge of them not being real doesn’t make it go away in the public’s eye.
ST: U.S. Commerce Undersecretary Phil Bond is recommending going out and aggressively fighting it. Do you think this would make the government appear a little defensive?
Teague: Well, I am a little different about that, in terms of being aggressive, but I think we need to be aggressive in making sure that facts are really communicated clearly. I was very pleased with your talk about the studies with the rats. For people to say, ‘Look, we’ve put these in the throat of these rats and they died.’ Well, for somebody who doesn’t look at what they did, that’s very alarming. But if you look at what went on, it’s almost like a bad experiment. It got a lot of press and a lot of notoriety.
ST: How do you combat that? People will believe what they want to believe based on their own preconceived worldview. This “toxic buckyball” story, for example. A lot of reporters happened to be at that meeting and so that moved around the world. How do you take aside a reporter and say, “No, it doesn’t mean this. Here’s what it really means.”
Teague: Well, I think in some ways most reporters that I’ve dealt with have a very high degree of integrity.
ST: Well, it’s not a question of integrity. It’s knowledge.
Teague: Yeah. I mean, if I trust in their integrity, I trust that if I speak to them in a truthful, honest way, so that sooner or later, the trust will build up. We must do that. When we know the facts, we need to communicate those facts and not try to hide them and not try to misinterpret them or wash over them or whitewash in any way. We need to say, ‘Okay, this is what happened. We did this experiment and this is what happened. And we’re trying to understand it.’
ST: You know that, since Watergate, the press is trained to be skeptical of anything a government official says.
Teague: Oh, I know. I’m well aware of that. I’m totally aware that is the case, that people tend to mistrust the government. But I think that we have to be clear in what we communicate in the sense of saying, “OK. This is the data, and this is what we’re doing.” Some of my close scientific colleagues didn’t know what was going on. They didn’t know that there was a real active, aggressive program that was really going to do a very careful, science study on the toxicity of these materials.