https://arstechnica.com/health/2024...k-plastic-study-authors-say-it-doesnt-matter/

Specifically, the authors estimated that if a kitchen utensil contained middling levels of a key toxic flame retardant (BDE-209), the utensil would transfer 34,700 nanograms of the contaminant a day based on regular use while cooking and serving hot food. The authors then compared that estimate to a reference level of BDE-209 considered safe by the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA's safe level is 7,000 ng—per kilogram of body weight—per day, and the authors used 60 kg as the adult weight (about 132 pounds) for their estimate. So, the safe EPA limit would be 7,000 multiplied by 60, yielding 420,000 ng per day. That's 12 times more than the estimated exposure of 34,700 ng per day.

However, the authors missed a zero and reported the EPA's safe limit as 42,000 ng per day for a 60 kg adult. The error made it seem like the estimated exposure was nearly at the safe limit, even though it was actually less than a tenth of the limit.

"[W]e miscalculated the reference dose for a 60 kg adult, initially estimating it at 42,000 ng/day instead of the correct value of 420,000 ng/day," the correction reads. "As a result, we revised our statement from 'the calculated daily intake would approach the U.S. BDE-209 reference dose' to 'the calculated daily intake remains an order of magnitude lower than the U.S. BDE-209 reference dose.' We regret this error and have updated it in our manuscript."

The evil ZERO strikes again.

 

And the news folks (who ALWAYS double-source ANYTHING they report, just ask them) ran hog wild with it. A week or so ago I saw a big segment where they told everyone to throw away any black plastic kitchen utensil. They even made a big show of taking a utensil from the kitchen of the reporter and having it tested and, having detected the presence of retardant, proceeded to throw it in the trash.

 

I would question whether the study would have been published if it had shown no danger.

 

Journal articles are paid advertisements. They get published, the only question is where. The most respected journals won't accept just anything, because they don't have to in order to sell out their pages.

 

I would question whether the study would have been published if it had shown no danger.

I don't know that it would have affected its publishability, per se, or even who would publish it. But the authors likely would have chosen not to publish it because it would almost certainly not be as widely referenced, and that is a key component in establishing the "reputation" of a researcher, which has an impact on how easy it is for them to get funding for future work. The end result is the same, of course. Articles that can be sensationalized in some fashion are more likely to see the light of day.

When I was a student working for NIST, the project leader I worked for used a metric that every time a paper you had published got referenced in another paper (by other authors, not your later papers, which don't count) you got a point, but publishing a paper cost you ten points. His, well, point, was that the mere act of publishing adds noise to the literature and that it takes at least ten other authors finding sufficient merit in your work to warrant referencing it before the signal content rose above the added noise.

 

But the authors likely would have chosen not to publish it because it would almost certainly not be as widely referenced

That’s what I was referring to. Dodgy areas of (pseudo)science have this problem, known as the file drawer problem. Studies that show no significant results are often just filed away unpublished, even though they are probably the correct result, while flawed studies showing incredible (literally) results get published with a big splash.

I fear that real science is moving in that direction. I no longer trust any nutrition studies, those people clearly have an agenda.

 

I would question whether the study would have been published if it had shown no danger.

There was an agenda that drove the results of that study IMO. Their methodology and data was so sloppy in that paper that even without the math error, it was a joke.
https://toxicfreefuture.org/blog/no...-contact-materials-and-other-household-items/

Megan Liu is Toxic-Free Future's science and policy manager. She manages Toxic-Free Future’s numerous science projects and policy initiatives.

Corrigendum to ‘From e-waste to living space: Flame retardants contaminating household items add to concern about plastic recycling’ [Chemosphere 365 (2024) 143319]

Authors Megan Liu a, Sicco H. Brandsma b, Erika Schreder a
a Toxic-Free-Future, 4649 Sunnyside Ave N Suite 540, Seattle, 98103, United States
b Amsterdam Institute for Life and Environment, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1108, 1081 HZ, Amsterdam, the Netherlands



The environmental chemistry journal Chemosphere has been delisted from several places.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemosphere_(journal)

In July 2023, the journal was put "on hold" in the Web of Science Master Journal List, because "[c]oncerns have been raised about the quality of the content published in this journal."[1] By May 2024, the journal had marked more than 60 papers with expressions of concern, typically citing "unusual changes" of authorship prior to publication and "potential undisclosed conflicts of interest" by reviewers and handling editors.[2] In December 2024 the journal got delisted by Clarivate.[3]