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> And the "scares" are often correct. See smoking, leaded gasoline, trans fats, various other food additives, etc. Leaded gasoline: we knew that was bad and di

> And the "scares" are often correct. See smoking, leaded gasoline, trans fats, various other food additives, etc. Leaded gasoline: we knew that was bad and did it anyway because it was easy and cheap. Trans fats: was this ever a 'scare'? Various other food additives: which? I know of more that were demonized for no reason than additives that ended up being bad for people. I applaud your use of non-plastic and think more people should do it. I dislike our reliance on plastics and think the microplastic scare is useful. I just don't see any evidence and only see scare headlines and I think that rousing people's fears over something is generally a bad idea when we could do it rationally. > Likewise you can look at the evidence of microplastics being bad for human health and say "ingesting random synthetic chemicals that bio-accumulate and are hard to break down are probably bad for you". I'm not sure why it should be self-evident that inert, tiny things in your body would cause harm. It sounds bad, but there is no real reason why it would be.

scottLobster 3y ago
Given the wide variety of chemicals lumped under the name "microplastics" and the complexity of the systems of the human body, many of which even modern medical science doesn't fully comprehend, the chance that they're all or even mostly inert is extremely small. Also "inert" materials can cause problems in human body all the time, even if it's just simple inflammation from the immune system responding to the physical damage they can cause. It's like continuously pouring small grains of random dirt you scraped off the ground into your car's engine while it's running, when you're not entirely sure how the engine works, and going "meh, they're just tiny particles of dirt. My engine is still running. Probably fine". You can run that experiment on your one and only body if you wish.
- Eisenstein 3y ago
  I would hope that there were a better 'we don't need evidence because it is obvious they are harmful' argument than 'things are complex and we don't know yet'.

scottLobster 3y ago

Given the wide variety of chemicals lumped under the name "microplastics" and the complexity of the systems of the human body, many of which even modern medical science doesn't fully comprehend, the chance that they're all or even mostly inert is extremely small. Also "inert" materials can cause problems in human body all the time, even if it's just simple inflammation from the immune system responding to the physical damage they can cause. It's like continuously pouring small grains of random dirt you scraped off the ground into your car's engine while it's running, when you're not entirely sure how the engine works, and going "meh, they're just tiny particles of dirt. My engine is still running. Probably fine". You can run that experiment on your one and only body if you wish.

Eisenstein 3y ago
I would hope that there were a better 'we don't need evidence because it is obvious they are harmful' argument than 'things are complex and we don't know yet'.