Protest against Eddie Bauer's Nanotech

On Saturday in Chicago, activists protested topless outside of the Eddie Bauer store on Michigan avenue. They're concerned that the Nano-Tex coating the company uses to make stain- and wrinkle-resistant clothing could cause health problems. Howard Lovy's NanoBot has posted exclusive photos of the protest and the press release from the activists, representing a Chicago group called THONG (Topless Humans Organized for Natural Genetics):

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"We're out here naked so people can SEE THE PROBLEM, nanotech is such a radical and unpredictable new technology, like biotech, that it takes something highly visible, like a naked body, to get people to focus on the need to stop corporations from using humans as guinea pigs for new, untested, and unstable new technologies!" said Kiki Walters of THONG. Link

And from a Chicago Sun Times report:

Some passersby averted their eyes. Others giggled nervously and kept walking past the demonstrators — about nine men and women who appeared to be in their 20s.

"Where's their mother?" asked Tonya Stewart of Bowling Green, Ky., in Chicago for an Auntie Anne's Pretzels franchise meeting.

"Y'all are rude," scolded Juanita Simpson, 25, of Beverly.

A bunch of guys in town for a bachelor party seemed to approve.

"This is the most action we've seen all weekend," said Brian Siebert, 25, of St. Louis.

Link

For more information, visit the International Council of Nanotechnology (ICON). Part of Rice University's pioneering Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology, ICON was launched to "address the potential environment and health risks of nanotechnology." Link