Before I ask, I want to disavow any suspicions people may have that I'm a shill for asking, so to borrow from a related subject: I hate the idea of bioaccumulative toxins. 3M and DuPont executives behind not just the original per- and polyfluorinated chemicals, but the replacements like GenX that are basically a nearly identical molecule with just a few atoms changed belong in prison, not in boardrooms, to say nothing of all the people complicit in distributing them in consumer products.

I may have taken the bait from the plastics industry on this one, I really don't know, but wasn't one of the pushbacks something along the lines of "well yes, there are microplastics, and yes, they do accumulate in the body, but you shouldn't worry about it - there isn't really any evidence of systemic harm being caused by them"?

Do you know if there are studies that do show evidence of harm from microplastic accumulation? It sounds really bad at face value, but I still want good, hard evidence before I'm ready to add an industry to my personal list of perpetrators of crimes against humanity.

I'll repost from a different comment I left:

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Early research links them to serious risks, including increased risks of heart attacks, stroke, and mortality, alongside potential inflammation, metabolic disruption, and reproductive harm.

https://med.stanford.edu/news/insights/2025/01/microplastics...

> Animal and cellular studies have linked microplastics to biological changes including inflammation, an impaired immune system, deteriorated tissues, altered metabolic function, abnormal organ development, cell damage and more. A recent large-scale review of existing research by scholars at the University of California, San Francisco, concluded that exposure to microplastics is suspected to harm reproductive, digestive and respiratory health and suggested a link to colon and lung cancer.

> More than two years after the procedure, those who had microplastics in their plaque had a higher risk of heart attack, stroke and death than those who didn't.

> So far, his research shows that these plastics can get inside cells and lead to major changes in gene expression. "These findings suggest that the particles contribute to vascular disease progression, emphasizing the urgency of studying their impact," he said.

> Children, whose organs are still developing, could be at higher risk of harm

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10151227/

> Thus, chronic exposure to low concentrations of microplastics in the air could be associated with respiratory and cardiovascular diseases depending on an individual’s susceptibility and the particle characteristics.

> The results of cellular and animal experiments have shown that microplastics can affect various systems in the human body, including the digestive, respiratory, endocrine, reproductive, and immune systems.

> In addition, microplastics interfere with the production, release, transport, metabolism, and elimination of hormones, which can cause endocrine disruption and lead to various endocrine disorders, including metabolic disorders, developmental disorders, and even reproductive disorders (i.e., infertility, miscarriage, and congenital malformations)