There’s a Scandal Growing About That Paper About How Black Spatulas Are Killing You

Remember that huge panic around black spatulas? It turns out that the whole thing may have just been a crock of crap.

A study published in October contended that kitchenware made of black plastics, and especially utensils like spatulas, contained alarmingly high amounts of toxic flame retardants due to the recycled materials they were sourced from.

It almost immediately caused a major scare, and articles published everywhere from The New York Times to CNN recommended throwing these ubiquitous plastic items out in favor of safer alternatives.

But after some scientists questioned the research, the editors of the journal that the study was published in, Chemosphere, issued a correction over the weekend clarifying that the toxic levels indicated by the work were, in a nutshell, wrong; a simple math error was behind the startling, but now seemingly debunked, claim.

The work, conducted by researchers at the advocacy group Toxic-Free Future, examined over two hundred black plastic household products, roughly half of which were utensils, to see if they contained brominated flame retardants that are commonly used in electronics.

Such chemicals, and in particular a variety known as BDE-209, have been linked with a number of worrying health outcomes, such as endocrine disruption, damage to the reproductive systems, and even cancer. Because the provenance of recycled materials can be tricky to determine, the researchers’ suspicion was that plastics containing the flame retardants were negligently being reused where they could pose the most harm: in the very stuff we cook our food with.

Their hunch was somewhat vindicated. Nine kitchen utensils were found to contain possibly worrying levels of flame retardants.

Some hilariously bungled arithmetic, however, led them to vastly overstate the degree of risk. The authors estimated that regularly using one of these contaminated kitchen utensils could result in an intake of 34,700 nanograms of BDE-209 per day. For reference, the Environmental Protection Agency says that it’s safe to intake 7,000 nanograms of the chemical per kilogram of body weight.

By applying this figure to a hypothetical adult weight of 60 kilograms, you would get a daily limit of 420,000 nanograms per day, which is well over ten times the estimated exposure levels to the flame retardant. But evidently, someone forgot to punch in a zero somewhere, and the researchers mistakenly reported this as 42,000 nanograms. What initially appeared to be hitting the ceiling of what was deemed safe turned out to barely approach that limit.

But in response, the authors of the paper say that while their math may have been off, their conclusions weren’t.

“However, it is important to note that this does not impact our results,” study lead author Megan Liu, science and policy manager at Toxic-Free Future, told the National Post. “The levels of flame retardants that we found in black plastic household items are still of high concern, and our recommendations remain the same.”

And perhaps Liu and her team are correct. It may be the dose that makes the poison, but why take the risk with a dose at all?

It’s certainly possible that we’re being exposed to these flame retardants from other sources besides kitchenware, accumulating to dangerous levels in our bodies over time. So if you’re worried, there’s no harm in ditching these black spatulas that do appear to contain the chemicals. But the alarmist response, it’s safe to say, was overblown.

More on chemicals: Scientists Identify Strange Chemical in Drinking Water Across the US