[Stoves] Adolescent females killed by WHO (Re: Crispin, Philip)
Nikhil Desai
ndesai at alum.mit.edu
Thu Jun 1 12:48:37 CDT 2017
Roger:
Shocked?
You ain't seen nuthin' yet.
The way aid industry communications have transformed over the last quarter
century or so, I have learned to forgive mild exaggeration and soft deceit.
Here the main problem is that the authors of press release claim - "pneumonia
– often a result of household air pollution from cooking with solid fuels.”
To claim "a result of" means "caused by". WHO cannot provide any evidence
of this.
In turn, that is because - as I pointed out in a post back last September
on this list - the cooks of GBD use different standards of scientific
integrity than what you and I may find logical. They ASSIGN causes of
death. They ALLOCATE risk factors for such causes.
It's a farce. That it is an accepted farce within a certain class of public
health folks is as tolerable as some theories of free market capitalism or
of central planning in academic economics departments which I am familiar
with. Social sciences - public health is a social science first, not a
biomedical science - have this problem of accountability all the time.
Nikhil
------------------------
Nikhil Desai
(India +91)909 995 2080
*Skype: nikhildesai888*
On Thu, Jun 1, 2017 at 9:24 PM, Roger Samson <rogerenroute at yahoo.ca> wrote:
> 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
> --------------------------------------------
> 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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