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Detection of microplastics in fetal organs of aborted Korean native cattle (Bos taurus coreanae)
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Researchers detected microplastics in the fetal organs of aborted Korean native cattle, providing evidence that microplastics can cross the placental barrier in livestock and accumulate in developing tissues. This finding is significant because transplacental transfer of microplastics suggests similar exposure risks in human fetuses, and livestock contamination also raises food safety concerns for meat and dairy consumers.
Hyeon Pyo, Gi-Yong Yu, SangMyung Lee, Yun-Bae Kim. Korean J. Vet. Serv. 2025;48:239-48. https://doi.org/10.7853/kjvs.2025.48.3.239
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Microplastics in domestic sheep: researching screening methods for food safety
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Scientists tested a low-cost method for detecting tiny plastic particles (microplastics) in the organs of sheep, since these particles are showing up everywhere in the environment and could end up in the meat we eat. They found possible microplastics in roughly a third to half of the tissue samples, but similar levels also showed up in their control samples, meaning contamination during testing is a real challenge that needs to be solved before scientists can accurately measure how much plastic is actually in our food. This is an early step toward better food safety testing, not a final answer on how much plastic is in the meat you buy.
Microplastics in Animals – A Global Concern to Food Safety and Human Health
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Researchers reviewed how microplastics accumulate in livestock and farmed animals, documenting contamination across meat, milk, and egg production systems and raising concerns about how animal-derived foods serve as a direct pathway for human microplastic ingestion.
The interaction of microplastics with the ruminal ecosystem in vitro
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An in vitro rumen fermentation study found that five types of microplastics consistently reduced gas production while increasing dry matter degradation in a dose-dependent manner, with metaproteomic analysis revealing microbial community shifts from Bacteroidetes toward Firmicutes. The finding that rumen microbiota can partially degrade microplastics—progressively reducing their size—raises food safety concerns about microplastic translocation into livestock tissues that enter the human food supply.
Detection and characterization of microplastics and nanoplastics in biological samples
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Researchers reviewed current methods for detecting and characterizing microplastics and nanoplastics in biological samples, finding that most techniques are optimized for environmental media like water and perform poorly in complex biological matrices, and recommending improved workflows for digestion, separation, enrichment, and analysis of particles in organisms and human tissues.
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