The CDC announced yesterday or this morning that they're back to pre COVID levels. It seems they're done dropping for now.

Also, plastics have been around for 100+ years. That would be one heck of a lag.

*EDIT* They're not back to pre-COVID levels yet, but getting closer.

Having just killed off over a million of the least healthy Americans makes things appear better than they actually are.

I see your point, but I suspect it's at least equally valid to assert that our average lifespans also fell due to COVID. Mortality isn't the only impact it had, and long term effects linger.

> life expectancies in North America have been declining the last few years.

I'm sure that has nothing to do with predatory health insurance companies.

Maybe it does and maybe it doesn't but the fact remains it's overly simplistic to assume that plastic production doesn't temporally lead changes in health effects by some amount.

To suggest otherwise is clueless and asinine.

does the US consume a lot more plastic than elsewhere?

Probably. But frankly I don't care, because that's irrelevant. Plastic pollution is global.

in which case it doesn't explain why America specifically has a lowered life expectancy.

It's almost like life expectancies cannot be explained by a single variable, and the original claim that life expectancies went up thus plastics aren't bad is overly simplistic. Imagine that.