What if cooking on gas was the cause of asthma? These intriguing studies

Two recent studies blame gas cooking for being responsible for approximately 12% of childhood asthma in the United States and Europe: preliminary results that are being discussed, especially since gas use is being encouraged, especially in developing countries.

According to the first study, published in December in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 12.7% of childhood asthma in the United States can be attributed to cooking gas, even though developing countries are encouraged to use this energy as a source of energy. energy. an alternative to coal and wood with established hazards. “Using a gas stove is very much like having a smoker living in your house,” said lead author Talor Grunwald.

This Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) study builds on a meta-analysis of 41 previous studies, combined with US Census data, and echoes a 2018 Australian study in which 12.3% of childhood asthma was attributed to these stoves. Probability calendar, similar results in Europe were released on Monday by the associations Clasp, Respire and the European Public Health Alliance.

Based on laboratory tests and computer simulations, the Applied Scientific Research Organization of the Netherlands (TNO) estimated that 12% of cases of childhood asthma in the European Union are also associated with this cooking method.

Shocking numbers for NGOs

This report, commissioned by an NGO and not published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, concludes that nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels exceed 5 days of the 7 maximum limits set by the World Health Organization (WHO), i.e. 25 mcg /cube meter outdoors. And this is in most cases (cooking modes and duration, ventilation, case type, etc.).

According to the WHO, high levels of NO2 in homes can lead to various respiratory diseases, including asthma. The Clasp Association is experimenting with 280 European kitchens, including 40 in France, in hopes of confirming these results. But for Tony Renucci, chief executive of Respire, these numbers are already a “shock”.

In the US, where about 35% of kitchens run on gas (30% in the EU), this issue has been hotly debated for weeks. Some, such as the US gas lobby AGA, dismissed the findings as “a purely mathematical exercise in advancing a cause that is nothing scientifically new.”

Scientists remain cautious

But for Stanford University’s Rob Jackson, author of a study on methane pollution from gas stoves (even when they’re turned off due to leaks), they confirm “dozens of other studies that conclude that breathing polluted gas indoors can trigger asthma.

Daniel Pope, professor of public health at the University of Liverpool (UK), says he is extremely cautious. The link between asthma and pollution from gas stoves has not yet been definitively proven, and more research is needed, he said. Leading an ongoing study of the health effects of various fuels, he concluded that gas cooking has “a negligible effect on all aspects of health, including asthma, compared to electricity.”

According to this professor, these publications should not negate efforts to encourage the population to stop cooking with wood and coal, which would cause 3.2 million deaths per year due to household air pollution, mainly in developing countries. The point to which Brady Seals converges, director of the Rocky Mountain Institute. “Gas is definitely better” than these other cooking methods, “but it’s not healthy for all that.”

U.S. authorities are taking the matter very seriously: Consumer Safety Administration chief Richard Trumka Jr. said on Monday that new gas stoves were being tested. “All options are on the table. Products that are not guaranteed to be safe could be banned,” he told Bloomberg, while assuring on Twitter that he is “not here to come and remove gas stoves from every home” of an American.