[jcutrell]

I think the point is that we don’t see the major spikes that the ubiquitousness of plastics combined with the alarm levels raised by headlines like this would theoretically produce.

If plastics are indeed poisoning us, the hazard ratio seems to be small enough that it would require significant research to quantify.

Compare to, say, the lung cancer skyrocket that happened in the 70s-90s from the 30-year smoking habits developed in the 40s-60s.

With plastics, either the lag time for effects is really long, the effects themselves are so spread out that any meaningful bump for a single one is hard to identify, or we are reducing other causes of the same issues in lock step.

[kelipso]

There could be observable effects that haven't been widely attributed to microplastics yet. Eg. the decrease in male testosterone over the last few decades.