We have to stop freaking out about every new microplastics study

You’ve probably heard microplastics are everywhere - in our brains, in our hearts, in possibly every single man on earth’s testicles . Studies published in major medical journals have reported that microplastics are plentiful in seemingly every inch of the human body and they have attracted widespread media attention. Most of us have gotten the message loud and clear: These manmade materials can’t be good for us, and ungodly amounts of them are already lurking inside our bodies . We have to stop freaking out about every new microplastics study Microplastics are bad for us. But scientists are still figuring out the rest of the story. Dylan Scott covers health for Vox, guiding readers through the emerging opportunities and challenges in improving our health. He has reported on health policy for more than 10 years, writing for Governing magazine, Talking Points Memo, and STAT before joining Vox in 2017. Settled science, right? Well, hold on a second. New reporting from our partners at the Guardian has called some of that widely publicized science into question. Covering a range of studies, the report cites both interviews with leading subject matter experts and scholarly reviews to challenge this narrative of human bodies teeming with deadly molecules. The critics ask: How confident can we really be about how much of this stuff is inside us, given the challenges in measuring anything at the molecular level? These studies were primarily focused on the prevalence of microplastics in samples taken from real people; other research has focused on the ways plastics harm health or the population-level health effects as plastics have become so woven into our lives. The type of research in question attempts to discern exactly how much these substances have penetrated people’s bodies, which was what led to those eye-grabbing headlines. But, according to the Guardian’s reporting , some researchers are calling foul on a number of methodological problems with these studies. On the study that inspired headlines of brains soaked in microplastics, researchers who were not involved noted that fatty cells in the brain have a history of throwing up false positives for polyethylene, a microplastic of concern. They also flagged the possibility that microplastics from the lab environment could have contaminated the samples, a concern raised about other studies covered by the Guardian and an unavoidable challenge for this kind of research; microplastics are literally everywhere . Our political wellness landscape has shifted: new leaders, shady science, contradictory advice, broken trust, and overwhelming systems. How is anyone supposed to make sense of it all? Vox’s senior correspondent Dylan Scott has been on the health beat for more than a decade, and every week, he’ll wade into sticky debates, answer fair questions, and contextualize what’s happening in American health care policy. Sign up here . And as a result, the study could be overstating, perhaps dramatically so, how many microplastics are actually present in people’s brains. Other studies had their own flaws, but the criticisms tell the same story: The research that...

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