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I don't think we should do domestic cooking with gas for reasons that include respiratory health, but it's worth noting that the link between modern domestic ga
by williamsmj 5y ago
I don't think we should do domestic cooking with gas for reasons that include respiratory health, but it's worth noting that the link between modern domestic gas ovens and childhood asthma is very weak relative to other risk factors, which might be why it's not mentioned in the article.
"When the meta-analysis puts everything together, they come to the conclusion that gas cooking produces a small increase in asthma risk for children, perhaps a 1.5 percentage point increase in risk." (https://emilyoster.substack.com/p/gas-stoves-finally https://emilyoster.substack.com/p/gas-stoves-finally)
- modeless 5y agoThe study in question: "Our meta-analyses suggest that children living in a home with gas cooking have a 42% increased risk of having current asthma, a 24% increased risk of lifetime asthma and an overall 32% increased risk of having current and lifetime asthma." https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/42/6/1724/737113 https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/42/6/1724/737113 To me, a 24% increase in risk of lifetime asthma is significant and well worth avoiding both at an individual level and a societal level, given that good alternatives are readily available. Given this 24% number, I guess the "1.5 percentage points" you quoted must be the absolute increase in asthma prevalence across the population, i.e. gas stoves in every home would cause 1.5% of people to develop asthma (when they otherwise wouldn't have it). That seems quite bad actually. If true, not using gas stoves (currently in 35% of households) could have prevented over a million cases of asthma in the US alone.