[Stoves] report with dissapointing results from cleaner cookstoves (Andrew) - Malawi

Thu Dec 8 00:06:20 CST 2016

List,  cc Nikhil, Crispin et al

	I consider this to be the single least professional document I have yet seen on this list.  This is to tell anyone agreeing with Nikhil that his rants and ill will towards (apparently) everyone working on stoves do not coincide with anyone else’s thinking that I know in this business.  He has some strange mental aberration that is beyond my comprehension.

	It is too late at night to go into detail - but I will do so tomorrow - on at least the 28 emphasized words/topics below.  I repeat - I am embarrassed that anyone would treat honest stove research in the way he has done below (and many earlier times).  There must be some explanation for his ill-well.  Anyone know?  

	I repeat - anyone who believes all this animosity - please wait until you hear the other side.

Ron 


> On Dec 7, 2016, at 1:27 PM, Traveller <miata98 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Ah, another report on "scientific" advance. I see scientists regressing to infantilism. 
> 
> Andrew asks, "Is it because there are other vectors of the  illnesses linked to poverty?" (Do Smoke-free Stoves Really Save Lives <http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-38160671>, BBC News 7 December 2016) 
> 
> Possibly, as Roger has pointed out. 
> 
> Any more details depend on the price. I have been surprised so often over the last 15-20 years, I stopped being surprised. 
> 
> For one, the Malawi study "was expected to show children are less likely to die of pneumonia if they live in a home where food is cooked on a smoke-free stove rather than an open fire."
> 
> Ah, forget about "other vectors". The very premise is presumptuous beyond common sense. What does "live in a home" mean, and what does "less likely to die of pneumonia" mean? Where do these pundits get their baseline data and the methods of testing likelihoods for different samples? 
> 
> Kevin Mortimer says,""Exposure to household air pollution is a problem of poverty. If you're not poor, you're not exposed." 
> 
> What nonsense. Emissions from uncontrolled combustion of fuels occur within "homes" as well as other cooking places, and they spread "outdoors" where exposures can occur to the poor as well as non-poor.
> 
> They <http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)32507-7/fulltext> set out with an untenable, ill-defined hypothesis and put 8500+ Malawian households under the researchers' eyes (no data on researchers' eyes or brains) - "10 543 children from 8470 households contributed 15 991 child-years of follow-up data to the intention-to-treat analysis." They "found no evidence".
> 
> It is amazing that the first photo in the Beeb story is of a closed smokey kitchen with open fire, and the other is of a one-pot "improved stove" OUTSIDE the home. Maybe Gill wanted to allege that even outdoor cooking with improved stove does not yield any measurable health benefits. 
> 
> 
> ********
> 
> BBC wonders "Where does this leave a huge UN-backed project.. ". 
> 
> Depends on what the meaning of "backed" is and what the meaning of UN is. Yes, some unrecognized Uber Nuts - otherwise known as GACC, a project with no legal personhood - have been feeding "Annual Reports", quarterly reports, CEO's golden words to the gullible media, but that amounts to glib propaganda, nothing else. Now that Antonio Gueterres is at the helm of the United Nations, he should formally resign from this gang o <http://cleancookstoves.org/about/our-team/>f Hillary lovers who have nothing better to do than host fine-wine-and-dine opportunities. Now that the South Lawn is beyond reach after 44 days, I would be happy to serve them wood-fired pizzas at Comet Ping Pong, and measure their pneumonias and premature deaths. Beer for $10 a pint. 
> 
> Wait a minute! BBC Action <http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaaction/about/funding> is a NEW IMPLEMENTER PARTNER <http://cleancookstoves.org/about/news/11-27-2016-new-partners-november-2016.html> of GACC and is funded by the same delusional donors who fund GACC (DfID, Govt of Norway), some more (US State Dept, EU) including some private companies (BMB Mott McDonald, DAI) who do "consulting" (which can mean expertise cooked to recipe). 
> 
> And, of course, by those saviors of the world looking for Golden Pills and fund the NIH/CDC kind of poverty porn by, ahem, "research", viz. Bill and Melinda Gateses. 
> 
> DfID also funded this "study", passed off as "hard science" to those gullible enough. Once you imbibe the GBD brew and get all mushy-headed, "hard science" is incarnated in BBC stories. 
> 
> Blind pundits parroting platitudes to the public. 
> 
> Nikhil
> 
>  
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 5
> Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2016 17:07:06 +0000 (UTC)
> From: Roger Samson <rogerenroute at yahoo.ca <mailto:rogerenroute at yahoo.ca>>
> To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves
>         <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org <mailto:stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>>
> Subject: Re: [Stoves] report with dissapointing results from cleaner
>         cookstoves
> Message-ID: <2117102759.1561055.1481130426403 at mail.yahoo.com <mailto:2117102759.1561055.1481130426403 at mail.yahoo.com>>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
> 
> Hi Andrew and all
> 
> I would have to read in more details the study and causes of pneumonia. However it is known that most forms of pneumonia are linked to viral or bacterial infections that spread from person to person.
> 
> Its likely that indoor air pollution is not a primary cause of pneumonia its weak immune systems and crowded living conditions ( like TB).  If you look at community priorities indoor air pollution is not high on their priority list compared to accessing better nutrition and health care.  You might be better off to ventilate houses or work on improving food security and nutrition in communities than installing expensive cook stoves if your target is pneumonia.
> 
> 
> regards
> 
> Roger Samson
> 
> 
> --------------------------------------------
> On Wed, 12/7/16, Andrew Heggie <aj.heggie at gmail.com <mailto:aj.heggie at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>  Subject: [Stoves] report with dissapointing results from cleaner cookstoves
>  To: "Discussion of biomass cooking stoves" <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org <mailto:stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>>
>  Received: Wednesday, December 7, 2016, 11:45 AM
> 
>  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38160671 <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38160671>
> 
>  It's a surprising result and I would like to know why the cleaner  stoves used did not return a lower incidence of respiratory infections.
> 
>  Is is because there are other vectors of the? illnesses linked to poverty?
> 
>  The two? good results were that the cleaner stoves appear to be safer  and more economical to use.
> 
>  AJH
>  
> -----------------------
>  
>  
> 
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