Scientific rigour and the dangers of microplastics | Letters

Key Highlights

• Decades of robust evidence demonstrates the harms that these inflict on people and planet. While this debate expands with the claim in your report by a former chemist at one of the world’s leading petrochemical and plastics producers that doubts raised about studies on micro- and nanoplastics in the body amount to a “bombshell”, independent scientists are collectively striving for clarity on what is known and what is yet to be understood in this area. In this light, it is worth reflecting on the state of public research.
• Ever scant resources drive less than healthy competition, pushing cash-strapped universities to enhance visibility through newsworthy findings.
• Meanwhile, a highly commercialised publishing industry – with thousands of journals making billions from gatekeeping publicly funded research while failing to compensate academic reviewers – is only too happy to oblige.
• The media are quick to jump on results, yet slower to cover more nuanced methodological debates.
• As always, the devil is in the detail. While independent researchers continue to conduct rigorous, painstaking science and engage in constructive debate, often uncompensated, for the love of science and the benefit of society, the plastic crisis continues to grow around us each day, with irrefutable evidence of its negative impacts on humans, other animals and the environment.