• Nalivai@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    That’s the fun thing about all this. Nobody knows. Is it much? Is it nothing? Is it dangerous? There is no people without microplastics in them, there is no way to have the control group for an experiement.
    Everyone kinda suspects it can’t be good, nobody has any fucking idea is it really

    • knowone@slrpnk.net
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      8 hours ago

      This made me wonder do uncontacted peoples have microplastics in them in large amounts like we all do? Like say the Sentinelese, for instance? I’m sure they do have some at least, despite them not using it, but maybe not nearly to the extent we do? This isn’t me advocating for using uncontacted peoples for studies and so on, obviously that’s not a moral way to go at all. Just a curiosity thing. If so, then if this is the huge ticking time bomb we suspect it might be then maybe we’ll all die off and they’ll be pretty much the only ones left. Maybe even unaware for the most part that we all died off. Yeah I’m just rambling at this point…

      • Nalivai@lemmy.world
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        8 hours ago

        They definitely have less of those, but given that we’ve found microplastics in deep sea creatures, I wouldn’t think they have a lot less

    • saimen@feddit.org
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      1 day ago

      I mean they could set in relation to the absolute values. Does a person who doesn’t drink bottled water ingests 100 or 100.000 particles?

      • Nalivai@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Oh, that’s measurable. What isn’t exactly measurable is what ingesting whatever number of particles does to you

    • BanMe@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      We know some of the effects, like endocrine and cellular disruption, which should be damning enough but the media likes to make it sound like microplastics may not be bad, people are being alarmist, etc. Because the media is owned by people who would be negatively affected by a plastic ban. Much like how we know tire and brake dust is a cause of autism, but no one is willing to put that in a headline.

      • village604@adultswim.fan
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        1 day ago

        The link between tire and brake dust to ASD isn’t a concrete causation yet. The papers do show a correlation, yes, but that isn’t the same as definitive proof of causation.

        For example, areas with higher tire/brake dust will have higher vehicle traffic, so it might be some other pollutant vehicles produce.

        • Telodzrum@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          Most public health policy (and hell, most of medicine) is based on correlation. Causation isn’t generally needed and sometimes it’s not even possible to prove.

          • humorlessrepost@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            Sure. But they were responding to the claim that “we know tires and break dust is a cause of autism”. Not “there seems to be a correlation, so maybe we should err on the side of abundant caution and treat it as if it’s causal when drafting public policy.” The correction was warranted.