> She probably will not publish this result because she thinks it is not interesting enough. Classic file-drawer problem in academic science.

It's truly insane that everyone in the academic class understands the fundamental problems of herding and sampling bias and yet every incentive is in place to do this.

> but far less strong evidence about its actual effects.

Yeah, but we shouldn't take absence of evidence as evidence of absence. The fact is that it's just really really hard to establish a causal relationship, even if it's there, because of all the cofounders. Heck even if you constructed a study with a known poison, like lead, and you might not see the results in a single study. You could give 50 participants water with flint levels of lead in it for a month, and you might not get scientifically significant result just due to the wide variance in a population.

Or another example is just thinking how hard it would be construct a study with a control, when every single construction material has plastics in it and they are floating in the air around us all the time (as mentioned in the article). Could it affect mental or reproductive wellbeing? Certainly. Can we construct a study to establish either way? Not easily.

And one of the plasticizers they talk about, pthalates, are known to be endocrine disruptors (i.e. mess with hormones).

I participated in research from 2017-2022 that found similar results regarding bio-interactions, generally.

Learned a lot about making microfludic flow cells at least

> ... too large to interact with T cells.

Also, unfortunately, a result that industry and the anti-regulation crowd will use to say microplastics are harmless.

> Her result was that the microplastic particles she studied were too large to interact with T cells.

Her "result" of what? Was there an actual experiment and what was its scope or was this by surveying literature?

Microplastics are of a pretty large range of size, and then there are nanoplastics below that.

I'm also not an expert, but a quick search shows a number of results of microplastics affecting T cells, some directly and some in terms of immune signaling, so this negative result doesn't seem that definitive.

(as usual, the difficulty is in teasing out in vivo effects)

Can microplastics never get small enough to interact with T cells?

One thing I learned from this article is that even though the plastic particles themselves are poorly studied the chemical additives, such as phthalates and bisphenols, are very well studied and are known toxins. So even if the tiniest plastic particles (smaller than the ones your friend studied, that can cross from your gut into your bloodstream), don't affect your health at all, you still don't want to ingest these things because of the other chemicals in them.

She should at least put it on https://www.biorxiv.org/ !

I expect many researchers are using fresh lab-made microplastics, which are indeed mostly harmless. However part of the problem is that real-world plastics are chemical sponges that absorb toxins (heavy metals, PCBs, etc) from the environment and deliver them in a concentrated dose into the body.

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/923529

This is a great interview, though I'd caution against reading it like a literature review. It's just the views and opinions of a single (relevant and qualified) expert

Exactly. If you fart in a cup and then move it to your pelvis without letting any air leak out and then release it, that doesn’t count as a queef regardless of whether or not you had a vagina.

Words have meaning.

It is proven that it tastes hella good though

deep cut

did read, >e360: Do we really eat a credit card’s worth of plastic each week? >Rauert: That has absolutely been debunked

and >...we found is that lipids and fats will give you a false positive for polyethylene. Lipids are made up of the same building blocks as polyethylene, so when we analyze them, they look identical in our analysis instrument. >I know it is easy to say we don’t have enough information yet, but we do know about [the health risks from] these chemicals that are in all the plastics that your food is wrapped in.

Not just because we can't measure it but because its hard to say what's due to the plastic and what's due to additives in the plastics

> And while we know a lot about the impact of chemicals added to plastic — such as phthalates, which have been shown to impact fertility, or bisphenols, which have been linked to Type 2 diabetes — we know very little about what effect the plastic particles themselves might be having.

> requires buying a whole new set of things that distinguish them from their peers

No, it requires buying a whole new set of things to fit in with and be accepted by their peers, to distinguish themselves from the outgroup, the plastic users.

I don’t necessarily believe this is some emergent elitism; I see it more as a modern religion with many many rules about eating and consumption (using plastic is now a sin).

Like any religion, sinners (for example plastic users) are mostly pitied because they are ignorant, but those who know and choose to use plastic anyway, well, it’s OK to hate them.

Health in general has always worked like this, from supplements, to organic food, to avoiding ultra-processed foods, to gluten-free diets, pretty much every popular health fad has no provable causative effect on health.

Most of human behavior is irrational. If we were all perfectly rational, we would have healthy diet and exercise habits from the get go, and we'd have plenty of time to prepare food and exercise, because we wouldn't waste any time on entertainment.

Why was that we used to be able to ban environmental toxins such as leaded gasoline without this weird psycho-social-political analysis that has become the fashion in some circles?

You could just liken it to any pop health, dietary, or environmental fad instead of trying to portray a banal "people turn consumer choices into personal identity/lifestyle" trend as a whole new class of phenomenon. Crunchy hippies shop organic and audiophiles buy gold-plated premium wires; every subculture has at least a little bit of superstition.

Even more so: plastics are not a specific chemical and they are not a specific material. Plastic is a category of materials that is very broad and very wide. You can make plastics out of almost anything. Therefore, to hate on plastics is to basically hate on an entire category of engineering and material design but not to actually know what a plastic is... sheer ignorance.

Interesting theory but doesn't really coincide with on the ground facts. We know there has been an increase in hormonal issues. We can barely even get anyone to stop heating up and microwaving plastic to be ingested, which we know causes issues. The European Food Safety Authority completed a re-evaluation into the risks of BPA in 2023, concluding that its tolerable daily intake should be greatly reduced. BPA was everywhere, every can and receipt. Just because people can't identify all the ways plastic is ubiquitously ingested in their life, it means they're hypocritical and don't care about the unknowns?

Are you sure it's all irrational? I, for one, prefer other materials for many things because they are more durable, hygenic or simply feels nicer. Seems perfectly rational to me. An irrational choice would be something like carrying a heavy canvas tent with wooden poles just because you hate plastic. Do you know anyone who does that?

Every plastic object replaced with a metal, or similarly strong/more solid material is an upgrade.

> There is so much invisible plastic in their life that they don't seem to care about.

Huh? You think it's hypocritical for people not to "seem to care about" things that, by your own definition, they are ignorant of?

yes

Please show us on the doll where the microplastics hurt you, for the jury please.