As the United Nations finalises a global plastics treaty, scientists fear a powerful industry lobby is undermining evidence about health risks

by SourceMaterial and Agathe Bounfour  

Bethanie Carney Almroth flew into Ottawa for a UN conference hoping for a reasoned debate on the danger plastics pose to human health. Instead she was “verbally harassed, yelled at and subjected to unfounded accusations”. 

The man doing the shouting worked for a US plastic packaging company and shouldn’t even have been there, said Carney Almroth, an ecotoxicologist at Gothenburg University in Sweden. 

“He interrupted to yell across the room to say that I was fear-mongering and citing misinformation,” she wrote in a complaint to the UN. “That meeting where I was harassed was a closed-door roundtable that industry representatives barged into,” she told SourceMaterial.  

At another talk, employees of a US chemicals giant “formed a ring” around her and bombarded her with claims that her research “misrepresented reality”, said Carney Almroth.

As UN member states meet in Busan, South Korea, to finalise a global treaty to cut plastics pollution, lobbyists are adopting strategies honed by the oil and tobacco industries to undermine scientific research, a SourceMaterial investigation found.

The tactics have been so influential that some scientists fear the treaty will do little to address serious health concerns linked to certain plastics, including infertility and cancer.

One described an academic meeting where delegates who did not show credentials were “openly videoing everything” and heckling speakers who presented evidence about risks from microplastics.

“It’s like David against Goliath,” said a scientist who described harassment similar to Carney Almroth’s, and like several researchers interviewed for this article asked to remain anonymous for fear the industry could affect their funding. “I now have a major fear of publishing anything.”

Tobacco playbook

Chemicals commonly used in plastics—often as softeners, flame retardants and colourants in everything from toys to clothes to carpets—can contribute to infertility, cancer and even obesity, studies have found. 

Some hormone-disrupting substances are so potent that “a concentration equivalent to one drop in an Olympic-sized swimming pool can change reproductive functioning,” said Susanne Brander, an Oregon State University scientist.

Recent studies reveal plastics contain far more chemicals than previously recognised—at least 16,000—but only six per cent are regulated. In 2022, 300 scientists called on governments to ban whole “families” of plastic chemicals.  

But lobby groups like the International Council of Chemical Associations are pushing for each chemical to be assessed individually—which would be so “extremely slow” it could set a global regulatory regime back years, said Brander.

They have been so successful the treaty may not contain any reference to hazardous chemicals, said Rachel Radvany at the Center for International Environmental Law.

Industry actors are “following the Big Tobacco playbook”, Carney Almroth said.

‘Hoodwinked by propaganda’

Industry-linked scientists say they are no less committed to integrity than their peers.

“We advocate for the truth,” said Chris DeArmitt, founder of the Plastics Research Council, a US organisation. 

“Fifty years of data shows no toxicity from plastics,” he said. “They were found to be as safe as the clay in dirt or cellulose, which is what trees and plants are made of.” 

The former consultant who has worked for TotalEnergies and ExxonMobil believes it is environmentalists who are twisting the facts. “Our role is to read, verify and share peer-reviewed science,” said de Armitt, who describes himself as “a scientist solving technical problems for companies”:

The Plastics Research Council believes the public has been “hoodwinked by the propaganda machine” about the dangers posed by plastics. 

“Our children are being taught nonsense at school and the public believe it too,” a statement on its website reads. “We need to act now, before the situation gets even worse.”

For others, the Council is just the public face of a coherent industry campaign that is behind a chilling effect on independent research.

DeArmitt is a “stereotypical merchant of doubt” who is “lobbying on the plastics treaty for corporate interests”, said Marcus Erikssen, a researcher at the 5 Gyres Institute, a US non-profit research group.

Three scientists told SourceMaterial that they had decided to avoid studying an additive to PVC known as Dinch and used in products including toys, medical devices, and food packaging, because of harassment from companies or lobbyists. 

All spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared it would harm their careers.

“I have had colleagues that wanted to study a chemical and they got targeted heavily by industry and cautioned me from getting into that area because of it,” one said. 

“I worry about what chemicals I am going to study,” said another. “I’m worried that industry will ring up administrators, and say ‘please stop this researcher doing what they’re doing’.”

Anyone researching certain chemicals should be prepared for a barrage of emails, phone calls and letters picking holes in their findings, scientists interviewed by SourceMaterial said. 

Some “have had to go to therapy for the stress and lack of sleep,” said Matthew Campen, a pharmaceutical scientist at the University of New Mexico. 

‘Paralysis by analysis’

As well as pressuring scientists, chemicals and plastics manufacturers also influence the academic debate by funding research of their own. 

In the Dimensions database of peer-reviewed research, SourceMaterial found that more than 2,350 studies on plastics or their chemical ingredients were funded by industry or written by industry employees.

While only a fraction are disputed, the findings show the scale of the industry’s influence on plastics research, said Leslie McIntosh, vice president of integrity at Digital Science, which compiled the database. 

One paper funded by a multinational oil company suggested using PVC, a chemical linked with cancer and damage to hormone systems, to replace coral in dying reeds—an idea one scientist, who asked not to be named, called “nuts”. 

“We’re trained to say ‘here are the weaknesses in our research’—and industry plays on that”

Usually industry’s influence is more subtle, however, said Campen.

“The strategy is to have grounds to say the science is not settled yet,” he said. “But even if we had a perfect study that was flawless, they would take the same stance.”

It’s “paralysis by analysis”, as companies keep demanding more data and higher standards, said Kristian Syberg, a scientist at Roskilde University in Denmark.

Lobbyists exploit scientists’ objectivity and turn it against them, said Genoa Warner, an endocrine toxicologist at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.  

“We’re trained to say ‘here are the weaknesses in our research’—and industry plays on that,” she said. 

The industry lobby “sets the bar so high no one can publish anything that fully meets their criteria,” said Martin Wagner, a microplastics researcher at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. “They monopolise what scientists have to do”.

‘Not logical’

As UN delegates battle over chemicals, an equally bitter row is brewing in Busan about microplastics—tiny chunks of material less than 5 millimetres long.

Trillions are washing around the world’s oceans and drinking water as bigger pieces of refuse degrade. Others are added deliberately to a range of products from facial scrubs and hand soaps to fertilisers and nappies.    

A growing body of evidence suggests they are entering our bloodstream and accumulating in our bodies to cause inflammation, damage organs and disrupt the immune system. 

“Microplastics deliver chemicals into the body, including heavy metals,” said Daniel Rittschof, professor of environmental sciences, Duke University. “They may be taking other, good chemicals out with them again when they leave the gut.”

There is now enough data to warrant global restrictions on intentionally adding microplastics to commercial products, according to the Scientists’ Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty. But here again some researchers worry that lobbyists are skewing the discussion. 

Among the key documents underpinning talks in microplastics at Busan are a pair of World Health Organisation reports on microplastics that some researchers claim downplay the risk posed by plastics.

The reports, which found that microplastics in drinking water “don’t appear to pose a health risk at current levels” and that “available data do not allow firm conclusions on the risks to human health of inhalation or ingestion”, are co-authored by Todd Gouin, a former employee at plastics giant Unilever. 

Another of the reports’ 14 authors, Bart Koelmans, heads a department that received hundreds of thousands of euros in research funding from the European Chemical Industry Council, or Cefic, and Plastics Europe. Wageningen University in the Netherlands, where Koelmans works, hosts a Unilever research centre.

Dow Chemicals has cited the WHO findings in public lectures, and the International Council of Chemical Associations, an industry lobby group, included them in its submissions to the UN: “Authoritative organisations,” it said, “conclude there are no adverse effects from microplastics to health with the available evidence”. 

“Industry has been pushing that WHO report hard at the UN treaty sessions,” said one scientist who asked not to be named, describing the document as “geared towards manufacturing doubt”. 

“It’s true that there are limitations in the data, but they blew the uncertainty up,” he said.

Responding to questions from SourceMaterial, a WHO spokeswoman said that the reports were “a product of several expert meetings”.

“The recommendations in the report are strong, with a clear call for additional, high quality research and to minimise pollution in the environment and human exposure,” she said.

‘Clapping our hands’

“Collaborations are valuable because the material knowledge of the industrial partners can contribute to the research,” Koelmans said in response to questions from SourceMaterial, adding that he always declared relevant funding and was not involved in lobbying. “With the right agreements in place, I believe there is actually a great deal to gain by selectively involving industry in research on health risks.”

Gouin said that as one of several WHO report authors it would be “extraordinary to suggest that my involvement was sufficient to influence the output from the total group.”

The studies “resulted in the identification of important research needs, which have subsequently helped to define the scope and influence the direction of research funding from various funding agencies,” he said. “It is unclear to me how the output from these activities, such as increased funding to academics working on microplastic, have favoured the industry.” 

“We should be clapping our hands” when industry-funded papers produce “sound science”, said Chris Reddy, a marine chemist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.

“Plastics has made some scientists a bit environmentalist,” he said. “There’s a line. You’re either an environmental scientist, or an environmentalist.”

Shouting down

But other scientists say their corporate-backed colleagues are helping industry to prevent or delay much-needed restrictions on hazardous substances. 

They point to publications like a 2019 article by Gouin and eight industry authors—BASF, ExxonMobil, American Chemistry Council, the Japan Chemical Industry Association, Dow, Plastics Europe, Cefic and Proctor and Gamble—calling for the “need for improved data quality”.

Last year a group of 35 international scientists published an article raising the alarm over potential “conflicts of interest” around the treaty negotiations and “tactics to manufacture doubt in favour of vested interests”.

The American Chemistry Council said it supports “sound science”. Cefic said its seeks ”to maintain a high level of protection for people and environment”, and Plastics Europe said it aims to “answer important questions about the potential effect of microplastics on humans”.

Intimidation at treaty negotiations is “getting worse progressively”, Carney Almroth wrote in her complaint to the UN. 

A spokesman for the UN Environmental Programme, the branch that organises international plastics conferences, said that the complaint was “handled with due process, and appropriate measures taken”. 

But Carney now fears that it is increasingly difficult for scientists to make their independent conclusions heard. 

“I’ve repeatedly had to intervene between industry men—and it’s always been men—yelling at students, who are younger, often female, shouting down at them,” she told SourceMaterial. 

“It’s how you undermine science to protect your economic interests.”

Additional reporting by Amal Karadi.

Headline picture: Microplastic fragments (SourceMaterial)