The White House does not support a ban on gas stoves, an official said Wednesday, as concerns surrounding indoor air pollutants from the appliances have made headlines, a report by Fox Business said.
Bloomberg had reported earlier that the US Consumer Product Safety Commission was considering a ban on gas stoves because the appliances can emit pollutants that cause respiratory and health issues.
Commissioner Richard Trumka Jr., a Biden appointee, told Bloomberg that “any option is on the table” as the agency works to create regulations that would make the products safer. “Products that can’t be made safe can be banned,” Trumka said.
Roughly 35% of homes in the US have gas stoves that, according to reports, release carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and other matter that the World Health Organization and EPA deemed unsafe because they can potentially cause cardiovascular problems, cancer and other health conditions.
As the controversy hots up, News18 explains what the health concerns around gas stoves are:
What are the Health Hazards?
A report by Vox explains what the issue with gas stoves are: when you turn on the cooker or oven, it begins by releasing pure natural gas (which is actually just methane, the world’s second-worst greenhouse gas).
But other pollutants, such as carbon monoxide and formaldehyde, accumulate in your kitchen once the hob is turned on. The most serious concern is nitrogen dioxide, which causes cardiovascular problems and respiratory disease; it can increase the risk of asthma in people, particularly children.
The pollutant can cause airway inflammation, coughing and wheezing, and increased asthma attacks in everyone, and the EPA warns everyone to limit their exposure at dangerously high levels (more than 200 parts per billion). Children, the elderly, and people with lung disease should avoid any exposure at these levels.
Nitrogen oxides are a byproduct of methane combustion, so the petrol stove or oven is doing its job when it emits this pollutant. Outside, the US Environmental Protection Agency would consider the NO2 level produced by the stove to be illegal. However, there is no regulation on the inside, the report says.
And, according to decades of research, nitrogen dioxide levels are high when a gas stove and oven are used. The CPSC and the EPA were both aware of the health risks associated with petrol stoves as early as the 1980s.
Scientists studying indoor air quality, such as Shelly Miller, an environmental engineer at the University of Colorado Boulder, told Vox that the community has been aware of the dangers since at least the 1990s.
“Cooking is the number one way you pollute your home,” she claims. It is causing respiratory and cardiovascular problems, as well as exacerbating flu, asthma, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in children.”
The growing body of evidence and public pressure prompted the American Medical Association to pass a resolution this fall that acknowledges “the relationship between the use of gas stoves, indoor nitrogen dioxide levels, and asthma.”
According to a December report published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, petrol stove use causes nearly 13 percent of childhood asthma cases in the United States, which is comparable to the level caused by second-hand smoke. It’s a level that “could theoretically be avoided if petrol stove use was not present,” according to the report.
Cooking as Bad as Second Hand Smoking?
Cooking with petrol indoors has been linked to 12.7 percent of all childhood asthma cases in the United States, according to a new study that compares its health effects to second-hand smoking.
The study prompted calls for more Americans to use electric and induction stovetops, including from US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, as well as criticism from the gas lobby.
Around 35% of American kitchens have petrol stovetops, which have higher levels of nitrogen dioxide, which has been linked to higher asthma rates in previous research.
The peer-reviewed study was led by the environmental think tank Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) and was published last month in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.
The study’s lead author Talor Gruenwald, a data scientist at electrification advocacy group Rewiring America, said the findings suggested that around 650,000 children in the US “are suffering from asthma who might not otherwise if they weren’t exposed to gas stoves”.
He told AFP that “using a petrol stove is pretty much like having a smoker living in your home,” referring to the comparable asthma risk from second-hand smoke.
The study employed the same methodology as a 2018 study that linked 12.3 percent of childhood asthma in Australia to gas stoves.
It combined a 2013 meta-analysis of 41 previous studies to determine the risk of asthma in children living in homes with gas cooking with 2019 census data from nine US states.
Growing calls for action
The American Gas Association, a lobby group, lashed out at the study as a “advocacy-based mathematical exercise that doesn’t add any new science”.
The study’s “authors conducted no measurements or tests based on real-life appliance usage, emissions rates, or exposures,” according to the group.
Gruenwald dismissed the lobby’s statement as a “boilerplate response” that provided no evidence to back up their findings.
The study comes amid growing calls in the United States for action to address the dangers of gas cooking.
“We can and must FIX this,” Energy Secretary Granholm responded to the study via Twitter.
She added that President Joe Biden’s giant Inflation Reduction Act “would give Americans greater access to electric and induction cooktops”.
Reuters
Last month, a US Consumer Product Safety Commission commissioner stated that his agency would issue a formal request for public information on the dangers of gas cooking.
The commissioner, Richard Trumka Jr, said in a video that “we ought to keep the possibility of a ban in mind”.
Last month, twenty Democratic Senators, including Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, signed a letter urging the agency to take action on the issue.
According to the World Health Organization, asthma is the most common chronic disease among children, affecting an estimated 262 million people worldwide and causing 455,000 deaths in 2019.
With inputs from AFP
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