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jagged-chisel 3 hours ago

> ... 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.

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w10-1 2 hours ago | parent [-]

also, asbestos is too small to interact with T-cells, so it must be safe.

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nostrademons 2 hours ago | parent [-]

It's not really analogous. One of the hypothesized ways that microplastics are harmful is that they disrupt the immune system; there has been evidence found of this in bivalves. Another is that they cause inflammation, which is also mediated by T-cells. A null result on the impact of microplastics on human T-cells is directly relevant to these hypotheses.

The mechanism of harm for asbestos is known to be that the fibers enter the lungs and can't be expelled, eventually leading to cancer. Its interaction with T-cells is quite irrelevant there.

	▲	pfdietz an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I understand asbestos fibers literally get tangled with DNA, and that this can be demonstrated in vitro.
	▲	Supermancho an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		>>>> ... 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. >> also, asbestos is too small to interact with T-cells, so it must be safe. > It's not really analogous. Ironically, this is missing the point. They were commenting on flawed reasoning. This shouldn't need to be spelled out, as it's part of the conversation context. Sometimes "dunking" comments are a variation on https://www.instagram.com/p/DY2DRKDhqaa - where everyone is arguing about who is wrong, because they aren't treating it like a conversation.