1. A whole cohort of core studies have been judged to have invalid methodology due to not recording baseline microplastic levels (https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2411099121)
2. Young-onset cancers (especially colorectal cancer) which were inferred to be caused by a rise in microplastics are being linked explicitly to other mechanisms and cohorts. (https://ascopubs.org/doi/10.1200/JCO.2025.43.16_suppl.3619)
Is there any indication on how bad this really is?
The PNAS paper is a pretty good critique of contamination/baseline issues, and I agree some of the “microplastics are causing young-onset cancer” claims got ahead of the evidence.
But the broader concern still exists: people are clearly exposed constantly, particles are being found in human tissue, and there are plausible mechanisms for harm. So no, there is not "much less to worry".
Also - in terms of human tissue:
"The problem is that some small molecules in the fumes derived from polyethylene and PVC can also be produced from fats in human tissue. Human samples are “digested” with chemicals to remove tissue before analysis, but if some remains the result can be false positives for MNPs. Rauert’s paper lists 18 studies that did not include consideration of the risk of such false positives." (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jan/13/micropla...)
and Rauert's paper (https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.4c12599)
* Corresponding authors
a Department of Chemistry, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1055, USA
E-mail: ajmcneil@umich.edu
b Department of Statistics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1107, USA
c Macromolecular Science and Engineering Program, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2102, USA
d Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2122, USA
e Program in the Environment, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1041, USA
To attenuate microplastics pollution, we first must quantify the number and types of microplastics found in the natural environment and identify their sources. Quantifying environmental microplastics requires distinguishing synthetic polymers from other naturally occurring species. Quality assurance and control measures – including wearing gloves when handling laboratory materials and samples – seek to reduce overestimating microplastic abundance. However, commonly used laboratory gloves release non-volatile residues, including stearate salts, that exhibit vibrational spectra similar to microplastics. In this work, we illustrate that dry surface contact with nitrile and latex laboratory gloves can cause overestimations of microplastics (mean 2000 false positives per mm2) when using traditional library matching approaches. We recommend a nitrile cleanroom glove (mean 100 false positives per mm2) to reduce contamination. For existing contaminated infrared and Raman spectral datasets, we outline workflows that differentiate between microplastics and stearate contamination from gloves. Applying these workflows to a case study of glove-contaminated environmental data, we illustrate that the proposed solutions reduce MP false positives at the smallest size ranges (<10 µm). By using this approach in conjunction with our included spectral libraries of stearate standards, researchers can address glove-based contamination in environmental datasets and provide more accurate estimates of environmental microplastic abundance.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1039/D5AY01801C
Article type
Paper
Submitted
29 Oct 2025
Accepted
11 Mar 2026
First published
26 Mar 2026
This article is Open Access
Anal. Methods, 2026,18, 2914-2926
M. E. Clough, E. Ochoa Rivera, A. M. Ayala, R. L. Parham, J. Pennacchio, H. E. Thurber, A. P. Ault, A. Tewari and A. J. McNeil, Anal. Methods, 2026, 18, 2914 DOI: 10.1039/D5AY01801C
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