Doubt Cast On Discovery of Microplastics Throughout Human Body (theguardian.com) 50
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: High-profile studies reporting the presence of microplastics throughout the human body have been thrown into doubt by scientists who say the discoveries are probably the result of contamination and false positives. One chemist called the concerns "a bombshell." Studies claiming to have revealed micro and nanoplastics in the brain, testes, placentas, arteries and elsewhere were reported by media across the world, including the Guardian.
There is no doubt that plastic pollution of the natural world is ubiquitous, and present in the food and drink we consume and the air we breathe. But the health damage potentially caused by microplastics and the chemicals they contain is unclear, and an explosion of research has taken off in this area in recent years. However, micro- and nanoplastic particles are tiny and at the limit of today's analytical techniques, especially in human tissue. There is no suggestion of malpractice, but researchers told the Guardian of their concern that the race to publish results, in some cases by groups with limited analytical expertise, has led to rushed results and routine scientific checks sometimes being overlooked.
The Guardian has identified seven studies that have been challenged by researchers publishing criticism in the respective journals, while a recent analysis listed 18 studies that it said had not considered that some human tissue can produce measurements easily confused with the signal given by common plastics. There is an increasing international focus on the need to control plastic pollution but faulty evidence on the level of microplastics in humans could lead to misguided regulations and policies, which is dangerous, researchers say. It could also help lobbyists for the plastics industry to dismiss real concerns by claiming they are unfounded. While researchers say analytical techniques are improving rapidly, the doubts over recent high-profile studies also raise the questions of what is really known today and how concerned people should be about microplastics in their bodies.
There is no doubt that plastic pollution of the natural world is ubiquitous, and present in the food and drink we consume and the air we breathe. But the health damage potentially caused by microplastics and the chemicals they contain is unclear, and an explosion of research has taken off in this area in recent years. However, micro- and nanoplastic particles are tiny and at the limit of today's analytical techniques, especially in human tissue. There is no suggestion of malpractice, but researchers told the Guardian of their concern that the race to publish results, in some cases by groups with limited analytical expertise, has led to rushed results and routine scientific checks sometimes being overlooked.
The Guardian has identified seven studies that have been challenged by researchers publishing criticism in the respective journals, while a recent analysis listed 18 studies that it said had not considered that some human tissue can produce measurements easily confused with the signal given by common plastics. There is an increasing international focus on the need to control plastic pollution but faulty evidence on the level of microplastics in humans could lead to misguided regulations and policies, which is dangerous, researchers say. It could also help lobbyists for the plastics industry to dismiss real concerns by claiming they are unfounded. While researchers say analytical techniques are improving rapidly, the doubts over recent high-profile studies also raise the questions of what is really known today and how concerned people should be about microplastics in their bodies.
This study brought to you (Score:5, Informative)
by Big Plastic
Re:No kidding we all have several plastic (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, did you ever check the sources on since if those studies, like did you ever open up the study and look at the pdf? I did and I thought they were shady, not all of them were, but most were. If you haven't opened up a report then you have no business even discussing this, you are relying on reports.
Re:This study brought to you (Score:5, Informative)
There don't appear to be any "Big Plastic" funding sources for this letter.
https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com]
The authors, as best we can tell, are all academics, no external funding sources are listed in the study.
The Lead Authors are
- Fazel A. Monikh (University of Eastern Finland / Utrecht University)
- Duan Materi (Utrecht University)
CoAuthors
- Eugenia ValsamiJones (University of Birmingham)
- HansPeter Grossart (Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries)
- Korinna Altmann
- Rupert Holzinger
- Iseult Lynch (University of Birmingham)
- Jessica Stubenrauch
- Willie Peijnenburg (Netherlands National Institute for Public Health and the Environment)
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There don't appear to be any "Big Plastic" funding sources for this letter.
This is Slashdot, sir. Everything we don't like is a conspiracy, thank you very much.
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There don't appear to be any "Big Plastic" funding sources for this letter.
This is Slashdot, sir. Everything we don't like is a conspiracy, thank you very much.
Oh yeah? Well that's just what they want you to think.
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Everything IS a conspiracy. Even the stuff we like.
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I would think the guardian is a reputable source with listening to. Also what about big environmental that is trying to eliminate all plastic.
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It's in non-human meat as well as human meat (Score:5, Insightful)
So is it cross-contamination in all these animal products as well?
https://www.theguardian.com/en... [theguardian.com]
They're finding microplastics EVERYWHERE. We're eating and breathing them daily. Should be no surprise to find them in the human body.
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I don't have the energy in me to do it right now but I would bet good money that if I dug into those scientists careers I would find money from the plastic industry.
I'm a little surprised that the guardian hasn't done that for me. They're usually better than this.
I should probably add (Score:2)
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I wonder if she will find microplastics inside.
Re: It's in non-human meat as well as human meat (Score:4, Insightful)
The Guardian article does some job of balancing perspectives. Some of the methodological issues, raised by the people who are questioning the past studies, are acknowledged by some authors of said past studies. This is not a straightforward case, the next few years will tell us more. There's other reasons to stop or reduce plastic usage anyway, it's bad for us, this hasn't changed.
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Yeah, and unlike humans we can easily cut animals open and look.
Given human population numbers, I’d say there’s plenty of recently deceased humans available every day to test that theory on. Wonder which entity will dare sponsor the autopsies.
I don't have the energy in me to do it right now but I would bet good money that if I dug into those scientists careers I would find money from the plastic industry.
* glances around the average lab *
Does it really require all that much effort when the fucking lab is half made of plastic? The place looks like it was built by Plasty McPlasticface, lead tycoon and CEO of Plastic Fantastic, Inc.
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...unlike humans we can easily cut animals open and look.
Not with that attitude!
Re: It's in non-human meat as well as human meat (Score:3)
It's pretty easy to get a medical cadaver and cut it open. Turns out is is quite difficult to detect and quantify micro plastics in tissue.
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I don't have the energy in me to do it right now but I would bet good money that if I dug into those scientists careers I would find money from the plastic industry.
Someone started the work for you: https://science.slashdot.org/c... [slashdot.org]
Re:It's in non-human meat as well as human meat (Score:4, Interesting)
Cross-contamination isn't the only issue that needs to be controlled for. Some of the analyses performed don't do a good job of distinguishing microplastics from the animal fats which are naturally present in animal tissue, and some of the papers don't give any indication of realising that this is a factor that needs to be taken into account when interpreting the analyses. So although it's indeed no surprise that microplastics are in the human body, the evidence for how much there is is less strong than claimed by some studies. (Disclaimer: I read the article before it was posted to /.).
Re:It's in non-human meat as well as human meat (Score:5, Insightful)
Should be no surprise to find them in the human body.
Yes. And no. This is about ruling out measurement errors. Measurement errors have a long history in Science and they are a really hard topic. Sometimes they completely skew results as to be unrecognizable. Sometimes they have no or only minor effects. Hence it is important to explore the question. And since that verification cannot start before the original findings have been published, this is just the normal timeline of things.
The sane thing is to just reserve judgment until the analyses have been completed and published.
Re: It's in non-human meat as well as human meat (Score:5, Informative)
A few months back there was a study that released the results that black plastic used in kitchen utensils was specifically bad as it was very high in toxic materials used in fire retardants.
Oh wait, they screw up their units and it was only a slight increase above other colored /recycled plastics and well below the maximum allowed standards.
Between the poorly done studies and the rush to publish in mainstream press, the media skips the review phase any bolsters these studies before they are readily available for general review. (Peer review has significant faults when too many studies are released and too few people to adequately review them.
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Oh, yes. The media reporting on Science is done by people there that do not understand Science. Still better to do the Science than not.
Re:It's in non-human meat as well as human meat (Score:5, Insightful)
So is it cross-contamination in all these animal products as well?
https://www.theguardian.com/en... [theguardian.com]
They're finding microplastics EVERYWHERE. We're eating and breathing them daily. Should be no surprise to find them in the human body.
True enough. Plastics are pretty ubiquitous, I'm just a little skeptical that they end up in our brains though. Or in body parts other than lungs or GI tract. We've used plastics for a long time now. What are they supposed to cause?
This is not trying to contradict you, just a place to chime in.
What is the definitive research that shows us that these plastics are killing us? There is good evidence that plasticizer chemicals like Bisphenol A is a mutagen, and resulted in it's ban - but if these plastics are say 10 percent as bad as BPA, it would produce a very noticeable and distinct effect.
Not a "big plastic" shill here, but in the world, a problem is seen, say people are getting leukemia from something, research shows it to be benzene, or children are presenting with birth defects, and research shows BPA is the culprit, or men start growing tits, and endocrine disruptors and phytoestrogen overload appear to be involved.
Some times I wonder if the FUD around plastics is similar to the thimerosol in vaccines nonsense. Thimerosol causes autism. Take thimorosol out, not change. Blame something else in vaccines. Parent's stop getting their children vaccinated. No change. Just a loss of herd immunity and some dead kids. The whole movement was a scam perpetrated by a researcher.
Meanwhile, research showing the curious correlation between pregnant women's proximity to fields where various chemicals are used and children with autism live appear to be ignored.
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So is it cross-contamination in all these animal products as well?
It makes sense that if identifying microplastics in human tissues is hard to do correctly, it's equally hard to do in animal tissues.
Re:14 years of Science is wrong? (Score:5, Insightful)
The actual objection is the studies finding microplastics in human brain tissue are not well controlled. The objection comes from a collection of other researchers who, except for one, all have publishing histories of studying microplastics in the environment and creating lab protocols for creating, handling, and detecting plastic micro/nano particles.
They are NOT saying there are definitely no microplastics accumulating in human tissues.
They ARE saying the original research methods are severely lacking - a criticism they seem well qualified to make - and that the research should be verified much more carefully.
The only people suggesting that microplastics actually aren't a problem in human biology are the hack writers at the Guardian and the Dow Chemical shill they got a quote from.
=Smidge=
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Re:14 years of Science is wrong? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, 14 years of science can easily be wrong. This is normal and healthy. Science finds conclusions, later scientists find counter-conclusions. The whole process leads to better information. Science that doesn't accept scrutiny isn't real science.
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Both the original microplastics studies, and this contradicting new study, are part of the scientific process. Scientific findings *should* be tested, and if the evidence is contradictory, the new contradictory evidence should also be tested. When good-faith conflicting claims are no longer considered, science has stopped working.
Remember kids (Score:2, Funny)
More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarettes.
Bombshell (Score:3)
Re: Bombshell (Score:1)
truth moves slowly (Score:2)
Brain study gut check (Score:3)
The brain study that made news last year was the first time I started to have some doubt in these studies. They reported >5000 ug of MNPs per gram of brain tissue. That's 5 mg/g, or 0.5% by mass. That's doesn't seem reasonable. A plastic grocery bag is ~5 g, and the human brain is about 1.3 kg. So 0.5% by mass is the equivalent of more than 1 plastic bag's worth of plastic in the brain.
That study did perform microscopy and identified what look like inclusions, but their analysis indicated the inclusions were carbon-containing, which while consistent with plastic, doesn't really exclude natural biological material.
The evidence that would be convincing to me is to perform these tests on tissue that either pre-dates the widespread use of plastic (maybe pre-1960's?), or from subjects that had far less exposure to MNPs than typical. Of course MNPs have been detected all over the world, but I would expect some island or Amazon native tribes would have less exposure than the average American, and would therefore show less in their brains.
That is how science works (Score:3)
And unlike politics, people will look at these claims and determine whether they have value. Anybody actually understanding Science will wait for those results before making a final judgement.
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Who is that "you" you are addressing here? Because it most certainly is not me.
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Yes, agreed on all points.
The more dramatic a claim, the less one should trust it.
The original dramatic claims were that plastic is everywhere in our bodies, and that it's harming us.
The new dramatic claim is that the original studies weren't well-controlled.
Both dramatic claims should be viewed with some skepticism until science has a chance to play out its process.
Paid research (Score:2, Insightful)
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The study https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com] lists all the authors, who are from academia. They explicitly state that they have no competing interests. One might accuse them of lying, but that's an entirely different allegation, than suggesting that the research might have been paid for by interested parties in the plastics industry.
Example (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm someone who is concerned about plastic pollution, and particularly concerned about ingesting it. I don't microwave my food in plastic dishes, and I use stainless steel insulated mugs, and I went out of my way to find teabags made without plastic. But the research results in this area were definitely exaggerated by the media. Here's an example:
One of the studies that looked at microplastics in the brain was conducted by taking brain tissue and using a chemical process to dissolve organic tissue, but then the researchers didn't really analyze the composition of what was left. They just assumed that all the remaining material was probably plastic. That's how you got the famous claim that there's *up to* a teaspoon full of plastic in your brain, which is an extraordinary claim and requires extraordinary evidence, in my opinion. In reality the method they used doesn't provably dissolve all brain tissue, so there's probably elements left over, and that's most of what was measured. But that didn't stop the media from grabbing the headline and running with it.
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Ate we getting micro plastics in the body (Score:2)
Yes. Is it in the amount that were in these junk science studies and reported widely in the media NO. I'm willing to bet that we're getting a little bit of microplastic contamination and then the human body but we're not getting a full teaspoon of plastic in the human brain like some of these studies have just suggested.
good news is (Score:3)
You can't even keep microplastics out of a clean-room science lab environment that's trying to conduct studies on microplastic contamination. I'm not up to speed on all the studies obviously, but I believe micro and nanoplastic are observed to be rapidly internalized by monocytes in phagocytosis. They are just another foreign body to be encapsulated by phagocytes so that we don't die from dirt in our environment or turn into walking tumors. The additional load on the immune system may cause lowered/delayed phagocytosis of other foreign bodies. This might be a contributing factor in autoimmune disorders/deficiencies. It's not good, sorta like increasing radiation levels by detonating nuclear bombs in the Pacific is not good. We might not adapt stronger immune systems or cellular repair mechanisms fast enough for the new shit we're introducing to the environment. A lot of species have not adapted to our pollution. Some have though.