• JstAnthrUsr@feddit.org
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    15 hours ago

    Wouldnt it be smarter to test for cancer risk with microplastics in blood as the explaining variable.

    Because all that gives you is saying “wow Theres a tumor, and it contains microplastics”.

    • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca
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      9 hours ago

      It’s no different than seeing amyloid plaques in brains with dementia and concluding they caused the dementia. That story has been going on for 30 years supported entirely by fraudulent manuscripts because it has to be true.

      We have been implanting plastics in medicine with stents, prosthetics etc for 75 years. No one ever saw tumors at those implanted sites.

    • Insekticus@aussie.zone
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      15 hours ago

      I dont know how one would reasonably test for a specific ‘risk’ of cancer from plastics considering the plethora of plastic and non-plastic causes of cancer as variables (both chemical and physical). One would have to go further and define specifically which mechanism(s) we’re talking about (Microplastic? Nanoplastics? Macroplastics? Physical contact/cellular damage from plastics? Amount of cancerous chemicals leeching out of the microplastics that entered the cell passively (considering theoretically it only takes a single molecule of a cancerous substance, to damage a specific oncogene whose reparation was simply overlooked by cellular gene repair chanisms thus causing cancer))? Do we differentiate between cancers caused by different plasticizers leeching out of different materials? And at what rate?)

      As infinitely reductive as the thought experiment may be, ultimately, it’s almost unnecessary when you consider that any size of microplastics leeching any amount of carcinogenic chemicals inside cells is too much, and should be treated with as much disdain as drinking from leaded pipes.

      More specifically, given the ubiquity of plastics in all humans, good luck finding a control group.

      • iopq@lemmy.world
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        13 hours ago

        How? You test the variables separately. For example, if smoking increases risk by 50%, combine the smoker and non-smoker groups with that in mind