Bloomberg Opinion's Admirable Call for Evidence-Based Discourse

Our mission here at BottledWaterFacts.com is to foster a productive, fact-based discourse about a product that is America’s favorite beverage: bottled water. We  advocate for such reasonable conversations because several activist groups and media outlets disseminate false claims and irresponsibly linking our products to scaremongering stories about microplastics, whether in the hopes of drawing clicks, or boosting fundraising, or advancing any number of political agendas.

At a moment when concern about microplastics all-too-often crosses over into paranoia, Bloomberg Opinion columnist Faye Flam has performed a genuine public service. In her December 11 piece "The Real Microplastics Problem Isn’t in Your Brain," Flam calls for critical thinking and responsible reporting on microplastics, offering a model of accurate, evidence-driven journalism at a time when such discipline is increasingly rare.

Without dismissing legitimate scientific questions, Flam points out alarmist claims about microplastics, exposing methodological weaknesses in early studies, and urging journalists to resist the temptation to oversell preliminary findings. While her piece doesn't dismiss any and all concerns, Flam’s op-ed serves as a reminder that credibility matters, and exaggeration ultimately undermines the very causes it seeks to advance: providing consumers with the facts.

Flam begins with a widely circulated Nature Medicine study that claimed human brains contain the equivalent of a plastic spoon’s worth of microplastics. The headline-grabbing assertion quickly drew scrutiny from other scientists, who noted that the study’s methods failed to distinguish between ordinary fat particles in brain tissue and actual plastic. In short, the measurement technique itself was flawed.

As Fazel Monikh, co-author of a rebuttal to the study, explained, particle loads at the levels suggested would “cause catastrophic occlusion, inflammation, and tissue destruction incompatible with life.” Put plainly: if those claims were true, we would not be alive. The fact that we are is strong evidence that those claims are not accurate.

Flam extends her critique beyond the study itself to the ecosystem that amplified it. While Nature Medicine issued a prominent press release for the original paper, the rebuttal received little attention, a familiar pattern that distorts public understanding. This imbalance helps explain why debunked false claims persist, such as the oft-repeated, erroneous assertion that people ingest a credit card’s worth of plastic each week—an estimate later shown to be inflated by a factor of one million.

The implications of that exaggeration are striking. As Flam notes, “it would take roughly 23,000 years to consume the amount of plastic in a credit card.” Retired chemist Mark Jones warned her that the “each week” distortion could erode public trust, citing “the rising resistance to essential vaccines” as an example.

Crucially, Flam’s skepticism is not an argument for complacency. She is explicit that open questions about microplastics deserve continued investigation and that environmental protection remains essential. But she also warns that routinely framing microplastics as an imminent catastrophe may be counterproductive. As she writes, "We don’t need to exaggerate claims to generate concern over microplastics and their potential harm to us and other living things. And promoting studies lacking rigor could backfire and breed cynicism or a sense of doom, rather than care or action."

Her insight deserves wider attention. Preliminary findings can be intriguing, but they require validation before they should shape public opinion or policy. By modeling careful scrutiny, Flam’s column points the way toward a healthier discourse—one in which evidence, not panic, drives environmental and health concerns. In the long run, the approach recommended by Flam and BottledWaterFacts.com is far more likely to produce informed engagement and effective actions.