Last month, the London-based Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) published a deeply flawed and misleading report alleging that most plastic chemicals threaten human health. Thankfully, level-headed experts were quick to point out the gaps in the report and correct its course.

It’s just the latest example of plastics reports riddled with problematic research, as The Guardian noted earlier this year, with one expert calling the revelations of numerous flawed reports “a bombshell.”

The EJF report authors provided their research exclusively to CNN and teed up positive commentary from Dr. Philip Landrigan, a professor at Boston College who is closely-aligned with the Australian-based Minderoo Foundation to conduct research targeting the American plastics industry.

However, plastics experts cited by the Daily Caller say that the report is heavily cherrypicked and blurs the line between potential exposure and actual risk.

“The report’s finding that 92.8 percent of chemicals pose a high risk covers only the 738 chemicals that had both toxicity and exposure data, out of 3,552 analyzed, Josh Bloom, director of chemical and pharmaceutical sciences at the American Council on Science and Health, which describes itself as a pro-science consumer advocacy organization, wrote in an Oct. 9 article on the group’s website. The 685 chemicals the report labeled high risk make up 19.3 percent of the full list, he wrote.”

Bloom further wrote in his article on the study:

“A chemical can be hazardous yet pose little or no risk if the exposure is too small to cause harm. Finding a hazardous chemical in a piece of plastic does not, by itself, tell you the risk from using that plastic.”

This discrepancy is because the metrics of the study utilize a very narrow set of regulations to determine toxicity. As American Chemistry Council Vice President of Regulatory and Scientific Affairs Kimberly Wise White explains:

“[The report] “uses California Proposition 65 as its only U.S. regulatory benchmark while omitting EPA oversight under TSCA [Toxic Substances Control Act] and FDA oversight of food-contact substances and medical devices. From that highly selective subset, the report mistakenly equates the mere presence of an additive in plastics as a risk and then claims that 92.8% of these substances are ‘high-risk’.”

The study itself does very little in the way of determining real hazards for human health. As Bloom puts it:

“If CNN set out to scare the hell out of people, its recent plastics report was a spectacular success. But if its intention was to educate people about the real harm of plastics, it bombed. Spectacularly.”

The EJF report is a timely reminder that valid concerns about toxicity should be addressed through clear, evidence-based findings, particularly when evaluating products and industries that are integral to both modern life and the American economy.

The Microplastics Fearmongering Machine

The EJF report isn’t the only example of faulty data being used to hype up panic around plastics.

Reporting around the EJA study also amplified the pseudo-science documentary, The Plastic Detox, a Netflix documentary following five couples facing fertility who seek to reduce their use of plastics.

The documentary’s featured scientist is Dr. Shanna Swan, a reproductive epidemiologist who guides the couples through a plastics intervention and lends the film its credibility. Swan admitted in the documentary itself that the research “is not a ‘scientific’ study” due to its lack of a control group and small sample size. Viewers are nonetheless told at the film’s end that three of the five couples conceived, with the clear implication that reducing plastic exposure was responsible.

The New York Times also acknowledges:

“Three of the five couples in the film did have babies. But it’s nearly impossible to ascribe cause and effect because of the small sample and the fact that the intervention wasn’t a controlled experiment.”

What’s more, the documentary was financed through Minderoo Pictures, the production arm of Australian-based Minderoo Foundation. The Minderoo Foundation is led by Fortescue Chairman Andrew Forrest, who in turn finances the activist non-profits bringing a California lawsuit against big oil over plastic production. Forrest’s role in funding the lawsuit came to light only after the law firm representing the groups filed disclosures with the Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

Landrigan, who partners with the Minderoo Foundation, was also featured in The Plastic Detox.

Bottom Line: This study utilizes cherry-picked data and seeks additional credibility from the same forces behind a pseudo-science documentary and lawsuits against American companies. A quick review of the facts clearly shows it’s all part of a coordinated campaign to take down a critical U.S. industrial sector.