5 ms·

> Well, we've been exposed to microplastics for decades, but what does the evidence say? Afaict, not much. The revelation that you are likely to have microplas

> Well, we've been exposed to microplastics for decades, but what does the evidence say? Afaict, not much. The revelation that you are likely to have microplastics suffused throughout your body seems far more meaningful than "not much". The effects of this are unknown, but it seems reasonable to be concerned about potential harm until it's effects are studied in vivo and it's statistically not more harmful than the utility we get out of it. That alone seems like decades of research. You don't need to throw up your hands and act like you can't hypothesize even if the answers are out of your reach.

hombre_fatal 2y ago
The fact that we can't pin down a strong effect on human health outcomes after decades of exposure should be a relief. We do have in vivo studies, but afaict they don't seem to pan out in human health outcomes.
- darby_nine 2y ago
  > The fact that we can't pin down a strong effect on human health outcomes after decades of exposure should be a relief. I can't say this means much to me when exposure to plastic has been accelerating that entire time. Still, I do sincerely appreciate skepticism as a useful part of any dialogue about hypothesized health impacts. Personally, I don't see an issue with avoiding consumer-grade plastic except when necessary.
- RIMR 2y ago
  It's not important how "relieved" you feel, it is important that we exercise scientific rigor when we notice something like this. I don't want scientists to look at the lack of evidence of harm, and just breathe a sigh of relief and carry on with other studies. I want scientists to see the overwhelming microplastic problem, and exhaustively study the risks, and harms, and the solutions. I see no benefit in hand waving away a potentially serious public health problem just because you aren't seeing any anecdotal evidence of harm.
- advael 2y ago
  In the last century the landscape of human health problems has pretty drastically shifted (more cancers, more obesity, more asthma, perhaps more mental illness, lower rates of maiming, less malaria and consumption deaths, and frankly this is all just deaths, which is not the only kind of health outcome we care about) so the fact that we can't suss out all the cause and effect from every factor and every outcome is neither surprising nor an argument against it being alarming any time a novel foreign substance can penetrate cell membranes and readily bioaccumulates Like we study mechanisms for a reason. "Little things get into all your cells" isn't a specific causal argument for specific health outcomes, but it's reasonable to assume it might do something undesirable based on what we know about how cells work and other cases like it. Also, the intervention space is pretty large and some scaling back on plastic usage from the current levels would not be some crazy obvious harm either Also, "we haven't found effects yet" is especially troublesome in a case where the contaminant in question is a cash cow for an industry that has continuously spent more money than I can even meaningfully reason about suppressing science and muddying discourse about products they sell. Sowing doubt has been an explicit strategy of the petroleum industry for greenhouse effects and it took a long time for us to even definitively know that, so now that we do, why should I assume the same companies aren't taking the same approach for this problem? Again, it feels like isolated demands for rigor
- pton_xd 2y ago
  > The fact that we can't pin down a strong effect on human health outcomes after decades of exposure should be a relief What kind of strong effect are you looking for, immediate death? That fact isn't reassuring to me at all. There's a wide variety of increasingly common health conditions that have an unknown etiology -- ADHD, autism, CFS, IBS, mental illness, obesity, etc. The fact there isn't an immediately obvious health outcome is worrying because it just as likely has a wide reaching effect on a great many bodily systems, making it difficult or impossible to isolate exact consequences from varying exposure.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - timr 2y ago
    > There's a wide variety of increasingly common health conditions that have an unknown etiology -- ADHD, autism, CFS, IBS, mental illness, obesity, etc. And the number of people named Killian corresponds well with the rise in incidents related to airbags: https://tylervigen.com/spurious/correlation/2599_popularity-of-the-first-name-killian_correlates-with_automotive-recalls-for-issues-with-the-air-bags https://tylervigen.com/spurious/correlation/2599_popularity-... You don't just get to pull random things that are going up (assuming that they're going up, which you haven't actually shown) and blame them on something else that is ostensibly going up. That doesn't suggest anything. Ever. [1] That is pretty sus, after all. Oh look, I just made MSCI's stock go up: https://tylervigen.com/spurious/correlation/1639_google-searches-for-that-is-sus_correlates-with_msci-incs-stock-price https://tylervigen.com/spurious/correlation/1639_google-sear... [1] But hey, waitaminute...violent crime is down since the 1970! Did microplastics do that, or does it only work for bad stuff?
    - pton_xd 2y ago
      Taking a step back, my point was simply that there's a large number of common ailments that we don't understand. We don't know what causes them and we don't know how to cure them. Our understanding of human biology is grossly incomplete. We are nowhere close to first principles here. We also have a long history of introducing new compounds into the environment and then many decades later saying oops, turns out those are toxic. BPA and PFAs recently, to name a few. Where does that leave us? Who knows. I'm not saying microplastics are responsible for any of those diseases. I'm saying we don't really know what the hell is going on, so some alarm and caution seems appropriate. And, call me crazy, I'd say accidentally coating the planet with a new substance isn't a good thing. There is nothing reassuring about this situation.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

hombre_fatal 2y ago

The fact that we can't pin down a strong effect on human health outcomes after decades of exposure should be a relief. We do have in vivo studies, but afaict they don't seem to pan out in human health outcomes.

darby_nine 2y ago
> The fact that we can't pin down a strong effect on human health outcomes after decades of exposure should be a relief. I can't say this means much to me when exposure to plastic has been accelerating that entire time. Still, I do sincerely appreciate skepticism as a useful part of any dialogue about hypothesized health impacts. Personally, I don't see an issue with avoiding consumer-grade plastic except when necessary.
RIMR 2y ago
It's not important how "relieved" you feel, it is important that we exercise scientific rigor when we notice something like this. I don't want scientists to look at the lack of evidence of harm, and just breathe a sigh of relief and carry on with other studies. I want scientists to see the overwhelming microplastic problem, and exhaustively study the risks, and harms, and the solutions. I see no benefit in hand waving away a potentially serious public health problem just because you aren't seeing any anecdotal evidence of harm.
advael 2y ago
In the last century the landscape of human health problems has pretty drastically shifted (more cancers, more obesity, more asthma, perhaps more mental illness, lower rates of maiming, less malaria and consumption deaths, and frankly this is all just deaths, which is not the only kind of health outcome we care about) so the fact that we can't suss out all the cause and effect from every factor and every outcome is neither surprising nor an argument against it being alarming any time a novel foreign substance can penetrate cell membranes and readily bioaccumulates Like we study mechanisms for a reason. "Little things get into all your cells" isn't a specific causal argument for specific health outcomes, but it's reasonable to assume it might do something undesirable based on what we know about how cells work and other cases like it. Also, the intervention space is pretty large and some scaling back on plastic usage from the current levels would not be some crazy obvious harm either Also, "we haven't found effects yet" is especially troublesome in a case where the contaminant in question is a cash cow for an industry that has continuously spent more money than I can even meaningfully reason about suppressing science and muddying discourse about products they sell. Sowing doubt has been an explicit strategy of the petroleum industry for greenhouse effects and it took a long time for us to even definitively know that, so now that we do, why should I assume the same companies aren't taking the same approach for this problem? Again, it feels like isolated demands for rigor
pton_xd 2y ago
> The fact that we can't pin down a strong effect on human health outcomes after decades of exposure should be a relief What kind of strong effect are you looking for, immediate death? That fact isn't reassuring to me at all. There's a wide variety of increasingly common health conditions that have an unknown etiology -- ADHD, autism, CFS, IBS, mental illness, obesity, etc. The fact there isn't an immediately obvious health outcome is worrying because it just as likely has a wide reaching effect on a great many bodily systems, making it difficult or impossible to isolate exact consequences from varying exposure.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- timr 2y ago
  > There's a wide variety of increasingly common health conditions that have an unknown etiology -- ADHD, autism, CFS, IBS, mental illness, obesity, etc. And the number of people named Killian corresponds well with the rise in incidents related to airbags: https://tylervigen.com/spurious/correlation/2599_popularity-of-the-first-name-killian_correlates-with_automotive-recalls-for-issues-with-the-air-bags https://tylervigen.com/spurious/correlation/2599_popularity-... You don't just get to pull random things that are going up (assuming that they're going up, which you haven't actually shown) and blame them on something else that is ostensibly going up. That doesn't suggest anything. Ever. [1] That is pretty sus, after all. Oh look, I just made MSCI's stock go up: https://tylervigen.com/spurious/correlation/1639_google-searches-for-that-is-sus_correlates-with_msci-incs-stock-price https://tylervigen.com/spurious/correlation/1639_google-sear... [1] But hey, waitaminute...violent crime is down since the 1970! Did microplastics do that, or does it only work for bad stuff?
  - pton_xd 2y ago
    Taking a step back, my point was simply that there's a large number of common ailments that we don't understand. We don't know what causes them and we don't know how to cure them. Our understanding of human biology is grossly incomplete. We are nowhere close to first principles here. We also have a long history of introducing new compounds into the environment and then many decades later saying oops, turns out those are toxic. BPA and PFAs recently, to name a few. Where does that leave us? Who knows. I'm not saying microplastics are responsible for any of those diseases. I'm saying we don't really know what the hell is going on, so some alarm and caution seems appropriate. And, call me crazy, I'd say accidentally coating the planet with a new substance isn't a good thing. There is nothing reassuring about this situation.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]