Health Wanted: Microplastics and PFAS
HEALTH WANTED, a weekly radio show and podcast produced in partnership with WABE, brings need-to-know public health headlines and breaks down the science behind trending topics.
The Episode
The topic: The invention of plastics brought us durable solutions to daily problems. But now, microplastics are harnessing that durability to stick around in our bodies. On this week’s episode of Health Wanted, host Laurel Bristow and guest Carmen Marsit, PhD, talk about how microplastics and forever chemicals get into the environment and our bodies, how they impact our health, and what we can do about it.
The takeaway: Microplastics and per- and polyfluoroakyl substances (PFAS) are abundant and hard to avoid. More research needs to be done before we truly know their health effects.
- Microplastics are pieces of plastic less than 5 millimeters across, and nanoplastics are one to 1,000 nanometers. They break off of larger plastics, like polyester clothing or rubber tires, and make their way through the environment.
- PFAS are human-made chemicals used in products like non-stick coating, waterproof cosmetics, and grease-proof food packaging. They don’t break down on their own, which is how they got the nickname “forever chemicals.” Because PFAS are in so many common products, they are also in almost every American’s blood.
- Microplastics and PFAS are both potentially harmful to human health, but we still need more data to understand exactly how. There is growing evidence that they are linked to things like inflammation, cell damage, some cancers, and impaired fetal development.
- Exposure can’t be limited entirely, but government action can do a lot to curb it. Some personal actions–like using high-quality water filters, phasing out teflon-coated cookware, and not microwaving plastic–can also lower your exposure.
The Interview
The guest: Carmen Marsit, PhD
The key takeaways:
- No one needs to be overly worried about microplastics and PFAS in their daily lives, but we should all be aware of them and the ways that we can try to reduce our exposure, especially because we don’t know all the health effects they can have in the long term.
- Pregnant people and young children, because they are still developing and susceptible to chemicals like PFAS, should be our biggest concern when it comes to avoiding exposure.
- Microplastics are hard to study because they are so small, the technology needed has only recently been developed, and it is hard to study population-level effects. PFAS pose a challenge because lack of regulation made them extremely pervasive in the environment and in people.
- Some federal regulation has been put in place to limit PFAS levels in drinking water, but that only addresses one route of exposure and will only affect the roughly 100 million Americans who drink regulated, municipal water. There is an international treaty in development that would limit plastic use and reduce microplastics and plastic pollution.
The Listener Questions
Does the HPV vaccine help prevent cervical cancer? Is it the best way to stop the spread of HPV?
There are over 100 types of human papillomavirus (or HPV), which is predominantly a sexually transmitted infection. The HPV vaccine protects against nine of those types, and it is the best way to prevent them.
Most cases of HPV resolve themselves within 2 years, but a small percentage don’t. Those persistent infections can lead to genital warts and certain types of cancers. The vaccine has done an incredible job at reducing the amount of HPV-attributable cancers, and that’s because the vaccine covers the strains of HPV that are responsible for 90% of HPV-related cancers.
Scotland began their HPV vaccine program in 2008, and this year they found zero cases of cervical cancer in women who got vaccinated over the last 15 years. Since the U.S. started its HPV program in 2006, infections with the types of HPV that cause cancers and genital warts have dropped 81% in young adult women.
The vaccine is not just for girls! New data suggests that HPV vaccination in boys can reduce the risk of HPV-related neck and throat cancers in men by over 50%. In the U.S., it’s recommended for all tweens (boys and girls) aged 11-12.
Is monkeypox still spreading in the U.S.?
In summer 2022, the U.S. had a large outbreak of what we now call mpox (because monkeypox is a pretty stigmatizing name) that was happening predominantly in men who have sex with men. Between 2022 and 2023, we had over 30,000 cases and 58 deaths, but then we stopped seeing new cases.
This happened because of a combination of things, most notably vaccination and behavior changes. The smallpox vaccine also works against mpox, and public health officials began doing targeted vaccination campaigns for the communities most at risk of infection.
It’s important for people to know that mpox is currently a serious issue in Africa. This year there has been an ongoing outbreak of a strain of mpox that is more lethal than the one we had in the U.S. This outbreak has originated in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and is currently spreading to neighboring countries because of ongoing war and displacement. The director general of the World Health Organization recently declared it a public health emergency of international concern.
Catch all the listener questions and Laurel’s answers on the full episode of Health Wanted by:
- Streaming at wabe.org or the WABE app
- Subscribing on Apple or Spotify
- Watching on WABE's YouTube channel
Find full show notes and sources here.
