[Stoves] report with dissapointing results from cleaner cookstoves (Xavier, Roger)

[Traveller]

Xavier:

I am afraid the authors wouldn't have been able to prove anything of the
sort you hope. To make "a difference in the health of the users", you need
both a baseline and the change. RCTs for pills are one thing - enough
problems there - but here the method gets ludicrous for a number of
reasons, among them: a) there is more to health than short-term diseases
attributable (not caused by) to measured exposures to specific emissions,
and b) there is more to stoves than mere fuel types. (Lord knows what
statistical distributions exist for the chemistry of fuels and physics of
combustion for some two billion stoves around the world.)

As Roger is so unkind to point out, "weak immune systems associated with
chronic malnutrition that is the primary cause of disease". And that is
only pneumonia. (India is supposed to have started pneumonia vaccine for
children. Why didn't GACC CEO market stoves instead?)

Of course, anything can be proved so long as there are enough peers and
some journal editors to stamp "APPROVED". Fooling enough people long enough
is the name of the game.

What you have in such studies is - sorry, I am sure to offend Ron and many
others here - "Our Diaries of Poverty Tourism: A Few Months in the Lives of
a Few Villagers Here and There, as Recorded by Fancy Monitors and Surveys,
Processed through Data Management Techniques."

Based on my stay in just one of the Vanuatu islands for about a year, I
could have produced "A Historical Cultural Social Economical Political
Treatise on Lives of Pacific Islanders and Their Stove Use." In English,
French, and Bislama. (A book
<https://www.amazon.com/Languages-Vanuatu-bibliography-Pacific-linguistics/dp/0858834693>
I
can't afford supposedly says "Vanuatu has more languages for its population
size than any other country in the world. Many of these are almost
completely undescribed.")

Coming to think of it, I should've submitted a proposal to GACC; it didn't
exist then, but I freely gave some ideas on what Mrs Clinton could do about
empowering women and saving lives. Dumb me.

And YESSSS!!!, "they will have to do this study again". I am sure some
peers have quibbled with this and that and the neo-imperialists are ready
to repeat what the imperialists did until just a few years ago -
caricatured the natives.

But why them? If you write a proposal, I will wholeheartedly endorse you.
Free. We could do a study in the Laccadives, Andaman and Nicobar. Paid
holiday by GACC, NIH, and Gates Foundation to roam the Indian Ocean like
Pi.

I am also ready to endorse Ron Larson. For anything.

Nikhil



>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2016 20:23:33 +0100
> From: Xavier Brandao <xvr.brandao at gmail.com>
> To: stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org
> Subject: Re: [Stoves] report with dissapointing results from cleaner
>         cookstoves
> Message-ID: <ed0fcb01-8d5a-a54f-c2a4-7969c834518a at gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"; Format="flowed"
>
> Hi all,
>
> My 2 cents: it is surprising that the authors of the study did not
> think of including electric plates in the range of cookstoves tested.
>
>  1. with the electric plates, they would have been able to prove if clean
> cookstoves do make a difference in the health of users, even with all
> ambient pollution around (buses, garbage burning, etc.), as Crispin mentions
>  2. they would have been able to prove whether or not improved woodstoves
> do make a difference in the health of users
>
> Did they make sure there was no stove stacking?
>
> Seems they'll have to do this study all over again?
>
> Best,
>
> Xavier
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2016 20:20:54 +0000 (UTC)
> From: Roger Samson <rogerenroute at yahoo.ca>
> To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves
>         <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
> Subject: Re: [Stoves] report with dissapointing results from cleaner
>         cookstoves
> Message-ID: <1894706735.1674371.1481142054311 at mail.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> I read the study a little deeper. These were poor households found within
> a poor country
> http://www.africanliberty.org/malawi-the-poorest-country-in-
> africa-whats-the-problem-peter-yakobe/
>
> To me its likely the severity of the poverty was a much more important
> factor than indoor air pollution as a causal factor of pneumonia. I think
> there are many on this list and in the GACC management that dont appreciate
> how its weak immune systems associated with chronic malnutrition that is
> the primary cause of disease. About 1 in 6 in malawi are undernourished so
> you have to think in those poor households the numbers are likely 1 in 2 or
> 1 in 3 in the stud being malnourished.
>
> Also malawi is quite dry, it might have been they do a lot of outdoor
> cooking and meals cooked indoors primarily in the rainy season. Can anyone
> comment on that? I remember reading a  report done in the Philippines and
> they used well ventilated bamboo hut kitchens and there was quite good air
> quality in the cooking areas.
>
>
> The bottomline may be there is no quick fix to improving health of the
> poor by using an improved cookstove. That might just be wishful thinking on
> the part of GACC.  To improve health you need a comprehensive strategy that
> includes clean water and improved nutrition as the first entry points to
> improving health.
>
> regards
> Roger Samson
>
>
>
>
>
>
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