alt Hacker NewsWeird to see how much attention plastics in food are getting despite no(?) evidence of harm vs. something like consuming too much sugar or alcohol, and BPA/BPS in receipt paper (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/24/well/health-effects-paper...).
It's very hard to maintain a mental ranked list of health things to be worried about when hypothetical concerns get more attention/coverage the confirmed ones.
Replies
Sugar and alcohol are clearly labelled and provide an obvious benefit, so people feel empowered to make that cost/benefit trade-off.
Microplastics do nebulous harm, and it's difficult or impossible to control intake.
While you're correct, my freakout lies in the fact that microplastics have been found to bypass the blood brain barrier...
Quote from Harvard medicine magazine:
> findings in models show inflammation, cell death, lung and liver effects, changes in the gut microbiome, and altered lipid and hormone metabolism.
Microplastics aren't anywhere near as well understood as sugar or alcohol. There's a growing body of research associating them with negative health outcones, inluding observing them causing harm on a cell level (i.e. not just correlational studies).
It's definitely not true that there isn't evidence of harm. There's a lot. It's more that this is a new field of research and not yet fully understood.
https://magazine.hms.harvard.edu/articles/microplastics-ever...
No one wants to consume plastic however, while with sugar and alcohol consuming it is the goal. What is the upside to consuming plastic?
I think this new microplastic-in-food hysterics is just another way to milk money on "microplastic free" badges/tags: selling usual items under new "MPF" brand with increased costs.
This website does have a column for BPA/BPS and receipts are indeed listed.
Sugar and alcohol have had decades of attention and public health campaigns. HN doesn't care because it's not new or interesting news and they are fairly easy to avoid.
I'm assuming because the body can break down sugar and alcohol but not plastics?
It’s almost impossible to remember to do all the things to keep healthy for sure.
Can the conclusion of ‘no risk’ be supported by ‘no data’? One of the common pitfalls in critical thinking is to neglect the logic that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The ‘having plastic particles in your body is safe’ conclusion conjures up a classic error known as the ‘appeal to ignorance’ fallacy Locke (1690), which is, ‘there is no evidence against x. Therefore x is true.’ This type of statement has no place in rational thinking. Note that to propagate claims of this type is to unduly shift the burden of proof onto those seeking conclusive evidence.
...
The European Environment Agency’s two Late Lessons from Early Warnings reports (European Environment Agency, 2013, European Environment Agency, 1896-2000) highlighted the danger. The reports analyze the impact of past inaction (or action) on environmental damage caused by, for example, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and public health issues generated by exposure to asbestos or diethylstilbestrol (DES). Each case is deconstructed to identify patterns leading to delays in appropriate decision making. The insights led to recommendations regarding how to respond to new warnings with the precautionary principle, i.e. to act to reduce potential harm as the preliminary signs of harm are still arising. It is interesting to note that the EEA had difficulty in identifying any cases of overregulation of a pollutant that had turned out to be benign when all the science was in. Most early warnings turn out to be legitimate. The costs of inaction are often drastically underestimated (European Environment Agency, 2013).
"Where is the evidence that human exposure to microplastics is safe?", HA Leslie, MH Depledge, Environ Int. 2020 Jun 26;142:105807.
<https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7319653/>
We are aware of harms from materials leaching from plastics, as well as direct harms from PFAS (<https://www.epa.gov/pfas/our-current-understanding-human-hea...>) and BPA (<https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25813067/>), to name only two of the myriad compounds and constituents of plastics.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
"despite no(?) evidence of harm" If you look up most of the chemicals on the list, all of them have suspected health impacts and the most have been confirmed to be harmful in some degree or another.
For example: DEHP - Endocrine disruption, disruptor of thyroid function, Ingestion of 0.01% caused damage to the blood-testis barrier... etc
source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bis(2-ethylhexyl)_phthalate