"It's scary"- Scientists finding mounting evidence of plastic pollution in human organs
"It's scary"- Scientists finding mounting evidence of plastic pollution in human organs
By Douglas Main A growing body of scientific evidence shows that microplastics are accumulating in critical human organs, including the brain, alarming findings that highlight a need for more urgent actions to rein in plastic pollution, researchers say. Different studies have detected tiny shards...
Cross posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/12562892
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I tried to write the most biased scaremongering paper about microplastics for a college course and I couldn’t find much directly linking human health to microplastics that was peer reviewed.
The main paper in this article, the one claiming its human brain samples are 0.5% plastic, is preprint - not peer reviewed. So, reporting on it like this is unethical tbh.
Truthfully, scientists have been looking for this sort of link in animals, and they can’t find earthshaking evidence of it. Most of the papers I found showed weak evidence of harm to animals. Most of the scarier papers have to do with how these plastics absorb chemical pollution in sea water, fish then eat the particles and are harmed. These papers point out they have trouble separating general harm from pollution from harm from microplastics pollution.
Microplastics don’t seem to go up the food chain either, seems most plastics people eat are introduced through processing it. So, stop eating processed food. Stop wearing polyester while you’re at it, a lot of microplastics come from laundry.
I’m not saying microplastics aren’t bad for human health. It’s just incredibly hard to study and it’s definitely not as bad as lead or asbestos. If it was, scientists would have found that link already.
The worst news I ran across was that there is no human control group for this stuff. Everyone is full of microplastics. Those are the only peer reviewed human studies this article mentions - the sort that are like “Of samples from 20 different people, they were all full of plastics! We need grant money for more study”.
I hope they get that grant money.
Inb4 we're hunting uncontacted tribespeople to collect unpolluted samples, and they are also polluted.
Its in the rain so it wouldn't surprise me at all
Weird idea, but is there anyone we know of from very early in the space race who died in space and is still up there in a capsule or something like that?
They might not be completely free of micro plastics but it might give us something to compare ourselves against at least (IE how much micro plastic is in someone from say 1962 compared to now).
I think our best bet is old green boots on Mount Everest, frozen in time.
Wow, a genuine, high quality post from lemmy.ml instead of the usual authoritarian propaganda.
Hail satan, death to capitalism and American imperialism