Is it time to ban g

particulate matter – pollutants that
are also found in traffic fumes –
which can irritate lungs and increase the risk of heart disease and cancer. Children and older people are the most vulnerable.
About one in eight cases of childhood asthma in the US are due
to the use of gas cookers, according
to a recent meta-analysis of studies assessing the link between these
stoves and childhood incidence of asthma. Based on these findings and survey data on gas stove use, the authors estimated the fraction of
current childhood asthma cases attributable to gas stove use in nine US states (International Journal of
Environmental Research and Public Health, doi.org/jsps).
The 1-in-8 headline figure is
“very uncertain”, says Frank Kelly at
Imperial College London, who wasn’t
involved in the work. That is because
of the study method of scaling up findings from previous research to population-wide outcomes, he says.
But it is clear that gas stoves are a
“major source of indoor air pollution”,
says Kelly, which can exacerbate or
even cause health conditions like asthma. “If the household has got an asthmatic child, they will have more
symptoms [with a gas stove] than if


Kitchens can have high levels of particulates
and nitrogen dioxide

100m
people in the EU may be exposed to dangerous levels of indoor air pollution due to gas cookers