The title says it all really.

Global warming to some is "alarmism", so much for that "myth". He is to microplastics what Christopher Monkton is to global warming.

Sadly, Alexei Khokhlov is not in any position to take the view he does, his scientific credentials are an unfortunate irrelevant as head of the Department of Polymer and Crystal Physics at Moscow State University, and a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, he has no credentials in biology or pathology or life sciences in which he can refer to. .

The fact is that we don't really know what the dangers of plastic microparticles are. It's a new phenomenon. Arguments about dust and wood are a red-herring. And anyway he's seriously wrong about that too. Asbestos dust - asbestosis and mesothelioma. Vehicle particulates - intellectual impairment in children, heart disease, respiratory disease. Stone dust -> silicosis. Tobacco smoke -> emphysema, lung cancer, stroke, heart disease. Wood dust -> lung cancer, respiratory disease. Flour dust -> asthma. Horse and dog and cat dander -> allergies Smog, air pollution -> respiratory disease, cancer, stroke, heart disease. Depleted uranium dust -> cancer. Then there is the whole animal kingdom to think of.

Not all particles are created equal, and that applies to the great variety of microplastics whose chemical composition and effect on the human and other living forms is basically entirely unknown. .What we do know is this, that in any new phenomenon, it pays to take the side of caution. There are mounting problems with "everlasting chemicals", Evidence is beginning to accumulate the microplastics could well be a problem.

Here is a random selection of informed articles to peruse

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/ebiom/article/PIIS2352-3964(22)00372-3/fulltext

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/microplastics-human-bodies-health-risks

https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2025/01/what-s-the-deal-with-microplastics-the-material-that-never-goes-away

My take away

Prof. Khokhlov (Presumably pronounced cock-love?) is definitely wrong to be so cock-sure, there is no intellectual, scientific or rational support for his statement today. There's a small chance that he might ultimately (in 50 years) be proven right, but plastic particles are a form of chemical and material pollution, ever increasing in our environment, and our record with any sort of pollution over centuries does not bode well for considering them as likely to be benign.