Our chemicalized world

This is the first of a two-part episode on environmental pollution with microplastics. In this episode, I have a chat with Martin Wagner, an Associate Professor from the University of Trondheim in Norway who was visiting our University a couple of weeks back.

We talk about whether there is an environmental impact from the widespread environmental occurrence with microplastic, how microplastic pollution relates to the wider issue of plastic pollution and possible policy actions.

I’ll follow that up with some of my own thoughts and a reflection on recently published literature in the next episode of Our Chemicalized World.

1. Allan Burton’s discussion paper “Stressor Exposures Determine Risk: So, Why Do Fellow Scientists Continue To Focus on Superficial Microplastics Risk?” can be found here. OpenAccess.
2. Martin Wagner’s homepage is here.
3. And here is our debate on “Microplastics in the environment: Much ado about nothing?” OpenAccess.

In this episode I critique a recent video on glyphosate that was produced for the Austrian television. I find the clip heavily biased and explain why. Afterwards I talk a bit about some details in a new report that summarizes the toxicological profile of glyphosate.

1. The glyphosate video that I critique can be found here. Timo Küntzle, the video’s author has his homepage here (in English).
2. The glyphosate draft toxicological profile from the US Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry can be downloaded here.
3. Public comments to the toxicological profile can be submitted until the 8th of July here.
4. A recent meta-analysis of glyphosate’s carcinogenicity has been published (open access) by Zhang, A. L., Rana, I. and Shaffer, R. M. (2019) ‘Exposure to Glyphosate-Based Herbicides and Risk for Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma: A Meta-Analysis and Supporting Evidence’, Mutation Research-Reviews in Mutation Research. doi: 10.1016/j.mrrev.2019.02.001.
5. The average intake of European consumers has been published (open access) in the paper ‘An assessment of dietary exposure to glyphosate using refined deterministic and probabilistic methods’, Food and Chemical Toxicology. 95, pp. 28–41. doi: 10.1016/j.fct.2016.06.026.
6. EFSA’s calcuation of average glyphosate intake can be found in their glyphosate assessment report (2015) ‘Conclusion on the peer review of the pesticide risk assessment of the active substance glyphosate’, EFSA Journal, 13(11), p. 4302. doi: 10.2903/j.efsa.2015.4302.

I talk a bit about pesticides, what they are and how they are regulated and risk assessed in Europe. Hopefully not too dry and boring, but it’s essential background for discussing potential pesticide impacts on human health or the environment. And it’s just 7 minutes, so bear with me...

In the second half of the podcast, I take take a somewhat closer look at one particular fungicide, chlorothalonil. The compound has just been banned a couple of days ago. I’ll explore why this decision was taken, and some of the reactions to this decision.

1. More details on the European system for the authorization of new active ingredients and the re-authorization of existing chemicals can be found here: https://ec.europa.eu/food/plant/pesticides/approval_active_substances_en
2. Details on the European system for the authorization of new pesticide products: https://ec.europa.eu/food/plant/pesticides/authorisation_of_ppp_e
3. The underlying basis for all these approaches is the EU palnt protection product Regulation (or pesticide Regulation in short). The full text, as all EU legal texts, can be found at EUR-Lex https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32009R1107
4. The EFSA risk assessment report on Chlorothalonil is here: https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/5126
5. The comment from the UK’s farmer’s association was taken from an article in “Farmers Guardian”, from 25th of March 2019: https://www.fginsight.com/news/news/european-standing-committee-votes-to-ban-fungicide-chlorothalonil-82354 There are actually quite a few more interesting bits and pieces and comments to be found in the article. Definitely worth a read.

This is the introductory episode of “Our Chemicalized World”, a podcast about chemicals and their impacts on human health and the environment. So, this is about chemical hazards, exposures, about risks and safety. About using chemicals and about avoiding them. About testing chemicals for their toxic effects, about measuring and estimating their occurrence in the human body and the environment.

I am starting this activity in order to explore an issue that I find important for all of us, given that we are using synthetic chemicals in every part of our daily life. The problem is that chemical production and use is truly a double-edged sword. So, let’s explore the popular myths, the inconvenient facts and the science behind it.

As usual, feedback is welcome!