New research that links cooking with natural gas to about 12 percent of childhood asthma cases has sparked debate about the health risks of kitchen stoves, as well as calls in the US for stepped-up regulation.
The authors of the study said their findings suggested that about 650,000 US children would not have developed asthma if their homes had electric or induction stovetops, comparing the impact on health to that of second-hand smoke.
However, an expert who was involved in the study questioned its findings and said that gas remains far healthier than cooking with wood, charcoal and coal, which are estimated to cause 3.2 million deaths a year from household air pollution, overwhelmingly in developing countries.
Photo: AFP
The peer-reviewed US study was published last month in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.
It is based on a calculation of the risk of developing asthma in homes with a gas stove from a 2013 review of 41 previous studies.
Combining that calculation with US census data, it linked 12.7 percent of US childhood asthma cases to gas cooking.
The same calculation was previously used in 2018 research that attributed 12.3 percent of childhood asthma cases in Australia to gas stoves.
A report released on Monday used the same calculation to link 12 percent of childhood asthma to gas cooking in the EU.
The report, which has not been peer-reviewed, was released by the energy efficiency group CLASP and the European Public Health Alliance.
The European report included computer simulations conducted by the Netherlands’ research organization TNO analyzing exposure to air pollution in different European household kitchens.
The level of nitrogen dioxide was found to exceed EU and WHO guidelines several times a week in all scenarios except for a large kitchen with a range hood that vented outside the home.
Nitrogen dioxide, which is emitted when gas is burned, is “a pollutant closely linked to asthma and other respiratory conditions,” the WHO has said.
This year, CLASP is to collect air-quality measurements from 280 kitchens across Europe in a bid to confirm the results.
The research comes amid heightened scrutiny of gas stoves in the US. Richard Trumka Jr, a commissioner at the Consumer Product Safety Commission, on Monday said on Twitter that the agency “will consider all approaches to regulation.”
“To be clear, CPSC isn’t coming for anyone’s gas stoves. Regulations apply to new products,” he later added.
The American Gas Association, a lobby group, denounced the US study as an “advocacy-based mathematical exercise that doesn’t add any new science.”
Brady Seals, a manager at the Rocky Mountain Institute and coauthor of the study, rebuffed the lobby group’s statement.
“Of course it’s just math,” she told reporters. “But it gives us a number that we never had before.”
Rob Jackson of Stanford University, who has previously published research showing that climate-warming methane can leak from gas stoves even when they are switched off, said the US paper was “supported by dozens of other studies concluding that breathing indoor pollution from gas can trigger asthma.”
However, researchers working to transition the 3 billion people still cooking with harmful solid fuels such as wood, coal and charcoal to cleaner sources expressed concern.
Daniel Pope, a professor of global public health at the UK’s University of Liverpool, said that the link between asthma and pollution from gas stoves had yet to be definitively proven, and that further research was needed.
Pope is part of a team conducting research commissioned by the WHO to summarize the effects different kinds of fuel for cooking and heating can have on health.
Pope told reporters that the results, which are to be published later this year, indicate a “substantial reduction in risk” when people switched to gas from solid fuels and kerosene.
They found “negligible effects (mostly non-significant) of using gas compared to electricity for all health outcomes — including asthma,” he added.
Seals responded by saying that the study did not assume a causal relationship between asthma and gas cooking, but instead reported the association between exposure and the disease using studies dating back to the 1970s.
An endangered baby pygmy hippopotamus that shot to social media stardom in Thailand has become a lucrative source of income for her home zoo, quadrupling its ticket sales, the institution said Thursday. Moo Deng, whose name in Thai means “bouncy pork,” has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to Khao Kheow Open Zoo this month. The two-month-old pygmy hippo went viral on TikTok and Instagram for her cheeky antics, inspiring merchandise, memes and even craft tutorials on how to make crocheted or cake-based Moo Dengs at home. A zoo spokesperson said that ticket sales from the start of September to Wednesday reached almost
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
CHINESE ICBM: The missile landed near the EEZ of French Polynesia, much to the surprise and concern of the president, who sent a letter of protest to Beijing Fijian President Ratu Wiliame Katonivere called for “respect for our region” and a stop to missile tests in the Pacific Ocean, after China launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). In a speech to the UN General Assembly in New York on Thursday, Katonivere recalled the Pacific Ocean’s history as a nuclear weapons testing ground, and noted Wednesday’s rare launch by China of an ICBM. “There was a unilateral test firing of a ballistic missile into the Pacific Ocean. We urge respect for our region and call for cessation of such action,” he said. The ICBM, carrying a dummy warhead, was launched by the
As violence between Israel and Hezbollah escalates, Iran is walking a tightrope by supporting Hezbollah without being dragged into a full-blown conflict and playing into its enemy’s hands. With a focus on easing its isolation and reviving its battered economy, Iran is aware that war could complicate efforts to secure relief from crippling sanctions. Cross-border fire between Israel and Hezbollah, sparked by Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7 last year, has intensified, especially after last week’s sabotage on Hezbollah’s communications that killed 39 people. Israeli airstrikes on Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon followed, killing hundreds. Hezbollah retaliated with rocket barrages. Despite the surge in
RSS