This paper considers how best to approach dilemmas posed to global health and biosecurity policy by increasing advances in practical applications of nanotechnology. The type of nano-technology policy dilemmas discussed include: expenditure of public funds, public-funded research priorities, public confidence in government and science and, finally, public safety. The article examines the value in this context of a legal obligation that the development of relevant public health law be calibrated against less corporate-infuenced norms issuing from bioethics and international human rights.

This article explores a unique opportunity for shaping public health law and policy to reflect a greater balance between public and private goods in two areas of primary concern to human well-being: medicine and human biosecurity. This opportunity is presented both by the rapid changes likely to occur in these areas as a result of nanotechnology and the fact that multinational corporate actors have not yet had the opportunity to use their well-honed techniques of governance influence to modify public health (...) policy and law in this area to their own narrowly focused advantage. Such a rare opportunity to rethink some fundamental assumptions about a regulatory framework for globally important health issues in advance is one reason why issues concerning nanotechnology regulation in medicine and human biosecurity should have considerable interest to health law and policy scholars. (shrink)