Engineered nanoparticles are so small they can poke holes in our stomach lining, break into our cells, and cross our blood-brain barrier. This can trigger the body’s inflammatory and immune responses, cause cells to die or become dysfunctional, and damage the brain. Impacts include allergic reactions, autoimmune disease, heart attack and stroke, cancer, and dementia.

For more information on nano’s health harms, read “Beyond the promise: Exploring the complex interactions of nanoparticles within biological systems,” published in the April 2024 issue of the Journal of Hazardous Materials.

Despite the known risks, engineered nanomaterials are routinely used in drug delivery systems (the COVID vaccines’ lipid nanoparticles are just one recent example). Even worse, the Food & Drug Administration has allowed engineered nanoparticles in food, toothpaste, sunscreen, and other things we ingest and rub on our skin—all without any safety testing or labeling. It’s really important to avoid makeup powders and spray-on sunscreens, because engineered nanoparticles are even more dangerous when inhaled.

Unless you’re eating only organic, you’re likely consuming some amount of nano titanium dioxide each day. People who eat frosted foods, candy, gum, and other sweets—often that’s children—get the highest amounts. Engineered nanoparticles are also added to baby bottles and plastic storage containers.

Infant formula even has nano ingredients! According to the Center for Food Safety, the FDA has known for several years that many infant formulas contain nanochemical additives that the agency has not approved. A study conducted by Arizona State University found hydroxyapatite and titanium dioxide nanoparticles in infant formula manufactured by four companies: Gerber, Enfamil, Well Beginnings, and Similac. These nanomaterials are common in non-organic food and are used for their brightening/whitening, anti-caking, and flow-enhancing properties.

The Center for Food Safety has an interactive database where you can see a list of 300 different products with added engineered nanoparticles.

It used to be hard to find a nano-free sunscreen, but now there are many brands, including Badger Balm.

Same with toothpaste. Now you can even find nano-free toothpastes that are certified USDA Organic or Made With Organic (more than 70%) Ingredients, including Radius and Dr. Bronner’s.

The most common nanotech ingredient is nano titanium dioxide, often used as a food colorant to keep powdered sugar white, for instance, or make other food colors appear brighter.

According to a database from the US Department of Agriculture, titanium dioxide is currently used in about 13,000 brand-name food products. Nano titanium dioxide is lurking in processed foods like Mentos, Trident and Dentyne gum, Skittles, and Starbursts candy, Betty Crocker Whipped Cream Frosting, Jello Banana Cream Pudding, Vanilla Milkshake Pop Tarts, Duncan Hines Creamy Vanilla Frosting, Nabisco Chips Ahoy! cookies and Nestlé Original Coffee Creamer. It’s also what makes most toothpastes white.

MARS, Kraft, Dunkin’ Donuts and McDonalds have all committed to not using any nanomaterials in their food products.

You probably won’t find nano titanium dioxide on the ingredients lists. It might be listed as E171, but the FDA also lets food companies just call it an “artificial color.”

Nanotech ingredients should have been regulated under Congress’s 1958 food additives law. This would have required each new nanotech ingredient to go through a rigorous premarket review to be approved or rejected based on scientific evidence, but in 2007, President George W. Bush‘s Food & Drug Administration turned the law on its head, announcing that, while it had the power to regulate nanotech ingredients as food additives, companies could expect them to be treated as “generally recognized as safe” unless and until the FDA made a decision on how to define nano.

That never happened.

A U.S. Government Accountability Office investigation published in 2010 found that engineered nanomaterials were entering the food supply as GRAS substances without the FDA’s knowledge. The GAO found that:

“FDA’s approach to regulating nanotechnology allows engineered nanomaterials to enter the food supply as GRAS substances without FDA’s knowledge. … FDA encourages, but does not require, companies considering using engineered nanomaterials in food to consult with the agency regarding whether such substances might be GRAS. Because GRAS notification is voluntary and companies are not required to identify nanomaterials in their GRAS substances, FDA has no way of knowing the full extent to which engineered nanomaterials have entered the U.S. food supply as part of GRAS substances. In contrast to FDA’s approach, all food ingredients that incorporate engineered nanomaterials must be submitted to regulators in Canada and the European Union before they can be marketed.”

In 2014, the Obama Administration FDA answered these concerns by issuing a final guidance for industry on nanotechnology that stated the FDA was not aware of any food ingredient engineered on the nanometer scale for which there are generally available safety data sufficient to serve as the foundation to meet the GRAS criteria. In other words, the FDA said engineered nanomaterials weren’t GRAS, but that didn’t get nano ingredients off the market. If anything, President Obama’s FDA made the GRAS loophole for nanotech even bigger. In 2016, it issued a Final Rule on Substances Generally Recognized as Safe where it affirmed the Clinton Era policy of not requiring manufacturers to submit their GRAS determinations to the agency.

In 2022, the European Union banned the most common nanotech ingredient, titanium dioxide. The FDA was petitioned to do the same in 2023, but hasn’t made a decision yet.

On March 10, 2025, Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., promised to close the “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS) loophole that allows dangerous food additives to enter the marketplace without premarket safety testing. This could mean ingredients made with nanotechnology might finally be safety tested as food additives!

TAKE ACTION: Tell Sec. Kennedy: Nanotech Shouldn’t Be “Generally Recognized As Safe”