This seems to be the Casefile episode about the "Phantom of Heilbronn"

https://casefilepodcast.com/case-178-the-woman-without-a-fac...

The Phantom of Heilbronn, often alternatively referred to as the Woman Without a Face, was a hypothesized unknown female serial killer whose existence was inferred from DNA evidence found at numerous crime scenes in Austria, France and Germany from 1993 to 2009.

The only connection between the crimes was the presence of DNA from a single female, which had been recovered from 40 crime scenes, ranging from murders to burglaries. In late March 2009, investigators concluded that there was no "phantom criminal", and the DNA had already been present on the cotton swabs used for collecting DNA samples; it belonged to a woman who worked at the factory where they were made.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_of_Heilbronn

▲

alsetmusic 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That's incredible. Though the effect of this will be claims that microplastics don't exist while no one in that case claimed that murders didn't happen. Happy to have learned about an interesting historical oddity either way.

▲

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 8 hours ago | parent [-]

I don't think anyone will claim microplastics don't exist, but people will definitely be skeptical of articles about how many there, and where they're found.

At worst, I'd expect to see people disregarding the threat, not disregarding the presence of the microplastics themselves.

▲

Lerc 7 hours ago | parent [-]

I'm not sure if they have established a threat. I thought it was mostly hypothesised or very locally specific harms.

On the other hand I suspect much of the real science on environmental plastic might avoid the term microplastic since it seems to have a meaning that flows to whatever can make the scariest headline today. I have seen the size range to qualify run from microscopic up to a couple of millimetres. Volumes, quantities, or location stated without regard to individual particle size. I'm relatively certain that they have not discovered 1mm particles inside red blood cells.

Even what counts as a plastic seems to be an easy way of adding vagueness, I saw one table that seemed to count cellulose as a plastic, which makes sense if you are thinking about properties of the material, but unsurprisingly easy to come across that it's not really worth going looking for it.

	▲	dijit 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		[dead]