STOMP

RFK Jr’s new research projects into microplastics can’t come a moment too soon

The word “microplastic” was first coined in a 2004 paper in the journal Science. The term has actually been around for longer than that—there are isolated instances dating back to the 1980s—but it was never widely adopted or used until the publication of “Lost at Sea: Where Is All the Plastic?” Marine biologist Richard C. Thompson, the main author of the paper, is now called the “Godfather of Microplastics” for his pioneering work. Scientists in the 1970s had noted the presence of tiny fragments of plastics in sea water, but Thompson was the first to highlight just how pervasive they are and to suggest they could be causing enormous harm to the environment, animals and us.

In the 22 years since the publication of that paper, we’ve learned a lot about microplastics—none of it good.

Concern about microplastics has only grown with our dependency on the marvellous physical properties of these long-chain molecules, most of which are derived from petrochemicals like crude oil and natural gas; broken down—“cracked”—into simple molecules and then reassembled into massive repeating units called polymers that can be bent and shaped to our heart’s content.

More than nine billion tons of plastic are estimated to have been produced between 1950 and 2017, but half that total has been produced since 2004, when Thompson wrote his paper. The vast majority of plastic ends up in the environment in one form or another, where it breaks down, through weathering, exposure to UV light and organisms of all kinds, into smaller and smaller pieces: microplastics and their even trickier brethren, nanoplastics. These are “secondary” microplastics, because they start off big and end up small, but there’s a whole class of “primary” microplastics which are small by design, like so-called “microbeads” used in cosmetics.

Important research has already given us a good idea of the extent of the threat, revealing how extensively our world and our bodies have been invaded by pieces of plastic too small to be seen by the naked eye.

Studies have shown, for example, that microplastics now circulate as a force of nature. One of my favourite studies in this regard was published a few years ago. Researchers collected snow from the top of the Hoher Sonnenblick mountain in Austria and analysed the samples for plastic content. They were the able to estimate that 43 trillion pieces of plastic are deposited over Switzerland every year in snow.

That’s 3,000 tons!

Using meteorological data, the researchers were also able to show the distances this vast quantity of plastic travelled to reach the mountain. Around 30% of the plastic—9 tons—came from urban areas within 130 miles of the mountain. Ten percent—3 tons—probably came from winds and weather 1,200 miles away in the Atlantic.

In another study, researchers looked at autopsy samples taken in Albuquerque, New Mexico, between 2016 and 2024. They compared microplastic levels between different organs—the brain, liver and kidneys—and also compared levels in these organs over time.

The researchers found that the brain samples contained significantly more microplastics than the kidney or liver samples. They noted a much larger amount of polyethylene in the brain samples than other plastics. Polyethylene is used in plastic bags, bottles and containers.

Even more worryingly, the researchers noted that levels of microplastics increased over time. Concentrations in the brain samples rose by 50% in the eight years between 2016 and 2024.

The researchers believe the results may be explained by the fact that the liver and kidneys are “front line” organs for the removal of harmful substances from the body, so they are better equipped than the brain to dispose of microplastics.

Plastics are lipophilic—meaning they are attracted to fatty tissues—and the brain has the second highest lipid content of any organ in the body, besides fat tissue itself. The brain also has a massive, extensive bloody supply to carry microplastics to it.

Microplastics have now been found in pretty much every organ, tissue and bodily fluid you could care to name: eyes, lungs, heart, liver, arteries, veins, skin, penis, testicles, placenta, womb, semen and the amniotic fluid in which babies gestate for nine months.

We now have reason to believe growing exposure to microplastics could be driving the explosion of chronic diseases we’ve seen across the Western world, and not just in America: everything from obesity and gut conditions like IBS, to cancer and neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.

Microplastics have also been implicated in the worldwide fertility crisis that could see humans unable to reproduce by natural means as early as 2050. According to expert Professor Shanna Swan, by 2050 the median man will have a sperm count of zero: one half of all men will produce no sperm whatsoever, and the other half will produce so few it won’t matter—they’ll never get a woman pregnant.

The problem is existential.

Despite the fast-growing body of research into microplastics—a search on the NIH’s PubMed database of scientific studies yields 21,918 results—there are still basic, fundamental, questions that need answering. Questions like: What are microplastics actually doing to our organs? What’s a safe level of exposure?

Is there a safe level of exposure?

Do different plastics do different things? Are some plastics more harmful than others?

There are even questions about how we measure microplastics in the first place. The development of new techniques and technologies has already shown that early measurements and estimates were wildly inaccurate. More sensitive equipment, able to detect smaller particles, has shown that a typical bottle of water has millions or even billions of pieces of plastic in it, rather than the hundreds we were previously been warned about.