[Stoves] Adolescent females killed by WHO (Re: Crispin, Philip)
Roger Samson
rogerenroute at yahoo.ca
Thu Jun 1 10:54:10 CDT 2017
I was looking at the data also and was shocked also how they cherry-picked data and use it out of context. The drownings of young men in India were a bigger problem than respiratory problems of young women. How they link the respiratory deaths of the women to smoke from stoves is another reach as you said Nikhil. I do not know if they are deliberately spreading fake news or if it was an accident. If it was an accident they should withdraw the press release or make a clarification.
regards
Roger
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On Thu, 6/1/17, Nikhil Desai <pienergy2008 at gmail.com> wrote:
Subject: [Stoves] Adolescent females killed by WHO (Re: Crispin, Philip)
To: "Discussion of biomass cooking stoves" <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>, "Philip Lloyd" <plloyd at mweb.co.za>, "Crispin Pemberton-Pigott" <crispinpigott at outlook.com>
Cc: "Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves" <info at cleancookstoves.org>
Received: Thursday, June 1, 2017, 8:32 AM
Crispin, Philip:
Please recognize that WHO has a gratuitous war against solid
fuels simply because a house of cards has been built on no
data on fuel/stove types, paltry emission, concentration,
and exposure measurements, and patently ludicrous
assumptions.
All of these have passed certain standards of practice that
have been accepted by the public health community (or nobody
bothers). The most recent GBD 2015 paper in Lancet (link
posted by Crispin; I have some notes on it) has a couple of
nice tables and figures about how these standards of
evidence and methods have been met. It may help to go
through these in a dispassionate way and try to construct a
biomedical basis of association between fuel use and disease
incidence to realize just how illogical the whole enterprise
is.
Therefore, it does not matter if you speak of kerosene or
ethanol. Deaths from fuel use are concocted BY ASSUMPTION.
Solid fuels are ASSUMED to be uniformly DIRTY FUELs. This is
"fact-free" science.
Let's look at this claim - "“the leading cause of
death for younger adolescent girls aged 10–14 years is
lower respiratory infections, such as pneumonia – often a
result of household air pollution from cooking with solid
fuels.”
A. How many females? WHO press release More
than 1.2 million adolescents die every year, nearly all
preventable says,
Data in the report, Global accelerated action for
the health of adolescents (AA-HA!): Guidance to support
country implementation, reveal stark differences in
causes of death when separating the adolescent group by age
(younger adolescents aged 10–14 years and older ones aged
15–19 years) and by sex.
...........The picture for girls differs
greatly. The leading cause of death for younger
adolescent girls aged 10–14 years are lower
respiratory infections, such as
pneumonia – often a result of indoor air
pollution from cooking with dirty
fuels.
Female adolescent deaths in the age group
10-19 from LRI numbered 36, 337 in 2015. The
corresponding number for males 10-19 was 36,018, negligibly
lower than that for females.
To put the number in perspective, the
main report's summary - Global
Accelerated Action for the Health of Adolescents
(AA-HA!)Guidance to Support Country Implementation –
Summary - shows females age group 10-14 deaths due to
LRI as 7.3 per 100,000 population, not surprising.
Nowhere can I find the absolute number for females 10-14
deaths from LRIs, but it seems to be less than 15,000.
So the accurate statement could be "An estimated 15,000
girls aged 10 to 14 died of lower respiratory infections,
including pneumonia, in 2015. Exposure to pollution from
household cooking has been established as a risk factor for
such illnesses. "
I have a problem even with this, because there is no factual
basis for such assertions. Death data for youth in the
developing world are just as poor as those for the elderly
if not more so. (Varies by cause -- accidents and murders
are one thing, suicides and LRI another.)
B. How are they dying?
The main report - Global
Accelerated Action for the Health of Adolescents
(AA-HA!)Guidance to Support Country Implementation Annexes
1–6 and Appendices I–IV only says, "Risk factors associated with chronic
respiratory diseases, including asthma include tobacco use,
second-hand tobacco smoke; other indoor pollutants; outdoor
air pollutants; allergens; and occupational agents."
This is standard IHME language and I have no objection to
it. But note that "other indoor pollutants" and
"outdoor air pollutants" are mentioned, without
any specific reference to "dirty fuels".
Writers of WHO press releases just threw in gratuitous
language to please UN Foundation (a major donor to WHO and
contracted to run GACC).
Horror, horror. The reality of science in
Washington and Geneva. Money sitting in
Seattle.
C. Why bother?
THE
GLOBALSTRATEGYFOR WOMEN’S,CHILDREN’S
ANDADOLESCENTS’HEALTH(2016-203 0)
Cites a 2006 WHO Report to claim,
"Globally, more than 3 billion people cook with
wood, dung, coal and other solid fuels on open fires or
traditional stoves. If 50 per cent of people who use solid
fuels indoors gained access to cleaner fuels,
health-system cost savings would amount to US$165 million
annually. Gains in health-related productivity would range
from 17 to 62 per cent in urban areas and 6 to 15 per cent
in rural areas."
That is something I can connect to, instead of aDALY
blather.
But then I see meaningless platitudes in "Energy and
Environment", something WHO should develop better
skills in:
"• Reduce household
and ambient air pollution through the increased use of clean
energy fuels and technologies in the home (for cooking,
heating, lighting)• Take steps to mitigate
and adapt to climate changes that affect the health of
women, children and adolescents• Eliminate
non-essential uses of lead (e.g. in paint) and mercury (e.g.
in health care and artisanal mining) and ensure the safe
recycling of lead- or mercury-containing
waste• Reduce air pollution and climate
emissions and improve green spaces by using lowemissions
technology and renewable energy"
Who appointed WHO as the world's
central planner?
Or the world's mommy?
Just recite "clean energy", "low
emissions", "renewable", "mitigate and
adapt to climate changes". Why bother thinking who is
going to do this how?
D/. Where are adolescent dying of what?
By far the largest burden of LRI is in
Sub-Saharan Africa (p. 19), and slightly lower than what is
euphemistically called "interpersonal violence" in
the Americas.
Go figure. WHO is not going to utter a word about the high
murder rate of American (north, central and south) youth,
but has to put in its platitudes about "dirty
fuels". Once hysteria sets in...
This is environmental imperialism plain and simple. WHO has
been hijacked by ideologues of "clean fuels" in
the name of preventable premature deaths. How ludicrous.
They don't have a leg to stand on.
I think Dr Chan is leaving her successor a
mind-boggling agenda creep.
What next - "clean cookstoves" to be added to
the LIFE-SAVING
COMMODITIESFOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN
Nikhil
------------------------------
------------------------------ ------------
Nikhil Desai(India +91) 909 995 2080
Skype: nikhildesai888
On Thu, Jun 1, 2017 at
4:05 PM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <crispinpigott at outlook.com>
wrote:
Dear Philip
Is there any evidence for other fuels, and stoves of the
base superior kind?
I fear that ethanol cooking is a similar risk because there
are so many crummy ethanol combustors, particular ethanol
gel stoves. Nothing is 'automatically
clean'.
Chemical pneumonia from evaporated paraffin
(stoves that overheat the fuel in the tank) is well known
and if the current standard SANS1906 is adhered to,
controllable.
For those not familiar with the risk, poor
combustion of paraffin can directly cause ill health but the
greater risk is overheating the fuel and evaporating it
directly into the room.
Where people use a paraffin wick stove for
space heating, the difference between a good and bad stove
is very clear. A well designed stove emits very little other
than CO2 and water vapour.
Regards
Crispin
“the leading cause of death for
younger adolescent girls aged 10–14 years is lower
respiratory infections, such as pneumonia – often a result
of household air pollution
from cooking with solid fuels.” [Emphasis
added]
We have some fairly solid
evidence that respiratory infections were endemic in
households cooking and heating on kerosene-fuelled wick
stoves; and of minimal similar health effects when clean
stoves were fuelled
with solid fuel (wood).
I think it is time for the GACC
to recognize that it is the fuel/stove combination that
leads to indoor air pollution, not just the fuel.
Prof Philip Lloyd
Energy Institute,
CPUT
SARETEC, Sachs
Circle
Bellville
Tel 021 959 4323
Cell 083 441 5247
PA Nadia 021 959
4330
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