To be fair, the general idea hasn’t been debunked; plastic contains a multitude of chemicals whose potential health effects aren’t well understood. And the black spatula study did identify a serious issue in plastic manufacturing. But the problem is literally 1/10th as big as the news stories led us to believe.
Flame retardants, especially a family of them called brominated flame retardants, are suspected of causing potential health issues (like cancer) and may accumulate in the environment. If these are being used in manufacturing, they should be kept away from places where people might consume them. And that’s where this study comes in.
What was wrong about the recent study
As Canada’s National Post reported, chemist Joe Schwarzc took a closer look at the numbers in the study, and found an error—the kind you probably made a ton of on your grade school science papers. (I know I did.) It relates to the dosage of the chemical BDE-209. The reference dose means—very roughly, and there is nuance to this definition—the amount of the chemical that’s considered probably safe to consume each day.
But that math was missing a zero. The reference dose actually multiplies out to 420,000 nanograms. That makes 34,700 nanograms not 83% of the reference dose, but 8.3%. Potentially still a concern, but not nearly to the same degree. The journal posted a correction, in which the authors say “We regret this error and have updated it in our manuscript. This calculation error does not affect the overall conclusion of the paper.”
That overall conclusion was that “when toxic additives are used in plastic, they can significantly contaminate products, made with recycled content, that do not require flame retardancy.” The authors also called for more research and regulation to be sure that plastic items are made with safer materials. And those do sound like fair points to make.
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