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How Gas Stoves Are Silently Polluting Our Homes

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Friday, May 3, 2024

A study has revealed that households using gas or propane stoves face significant exposure to nitrogen dioxide (NO2), which can lead to health issues like asthma and even premature death. The study conducted by researchers from various institutions, including Stanford, showed that NO2 levels in homes can remain elevated for hours after stove use, affecting even those not directly in the kitchen.People with gas and propane stoves breathe more unhealthy nitrogen dioxide.Households with gas or propane stoves regularly breathe unhealthy levels of nitrogen dioxide, a study of air pollution in U.S. homes found.“I didn’t expect to see pollutant concentrations breach health benchmarks in bedrooms within an hour of gas stove use, and stay there for hours after the stove is turned off,” said Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability Professor Rob Jackson, senior author of the May 3 study in Science Advances. Pollution from gas and propane stoves isn’t just an issue for cooks or people in the kitchen, he said. “It’s the whole family’s problem.”Among other negative health effects, breathing high levels of nitrogen dioxide, or NO2, over time can intensify asthma attacks and has been linked to decreased lung development in children and early deaths. Although most exposure to NO2 is caused by cars and trucks burning fossil fuels, the researchers estimate that the mix of pollutants coming from gas and propane stoves overall may be responsible for as many as 200,000 current childhood asthma cases. One quarter of these can be attributed to nitrogen dioxide alone, according to the paper’s authors, who include scientists from Central California Asthma Collaborative, PSE Healthy Energy, and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.“We found that just how much gas you burn in your stove is by far the biggest factor affecting how much you’re exposed. And then, after that, do you have an effective range hood – and do you use it?” said lead study author Yannai Kashtan, a PhD student in Earth system science.Stanford PhD student Metta Nicholson observes a gas burner in a home where scientists measured air pollution as part of their data collection in California, Texas, Colorado, New York, and Washington, D.C.. Credit: Rob Jackson, Stanford Doerr School of SustainabilityLittle Room for Additional ExposureBeyond asthma cases, the long-term exposure to NO2 in American households with gas stoves is high enough to cause thousands of deaths each year – possibly as many as 19,000 or 40% of the number of deaths linked annually to secondhand smoke. This estimate is based on the researchers’ new measurements and calculations of how much nitrogen dioxide people breathe at home because of gas stoves and the best available data on deaths from long-term exposure to outdoor NO2, which is regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.The death toll estimate is approximate in part because it does not factor in the harmful effects of repeated exposure to extremely high levels of nitrogen dioxide in short bursts, as occurs in homes with gas stoves. It also relies on past studies of health impacts from nitrogen dioxide encountered outdoors, where additional pollutants from vehicles and power plants are present.Colin Finnegan of the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability checks a simmering pot on a gas stove that does not have a range hood. Using a range hood that vents air to the outdoors can dramatically influence how much nitrogen dioxide fills the air in a home. Credit: Rob Jackson, Stanford Doerr School of SustainabilityThe researchers used sensors to measure concentrations of NO2 throughout more than 100 homes of various sizes, layouts, and ventilation methods, before, during, and after stove use. They incorporated these measurements and other data into a model powered by National Institutes for Standards and Technology (NIST) software known as CONTAM for simulating airflow, contaminant transport, and room-by-room occupant exposure in buildings. This allowed them to estimate nationwide averages and short-term exposures under a range of realistic conditions and behaviors, and cross-check model outputs against their home measurements.The results show that nationwide, typical use of a gas or propane stove increases exposure to nitrogen dioxide by an estimated 4 parts per billion, averaged over a year. That’s three quarters of the way to the nitrogen dioxide exposure level that the World Health Organization recognizes as unsafe in outdoor air. “That’s excluding all outdoor sources combined, so it makes it much more likely you’re going to exceed the limit,” said Kashtan.Understanding How Gas Stoves Affect HealthThe study is the latest in a series from Jackson’s group at Stanford looking at indoor air pollution from gas stoves. Earlier studies documented the rate at which gas stoves emit other pollutants, including the greenhouse gas methane and the carcinogen benzene. But to understand the implications of stove emissions for human health, the researchers needed to find out how much pollutants spread through a home, build up, and eventually dissipate. “We’re moving from measuring how much pollution comes from stoves to how much pollution people actually breathe,” said Jackson, who is the Michelle and Kevin Douglas Provostial Professor in Earth System Science.With any fuel source, particle pollution can rise from food cooking in a hot pan. The new research confirms that food emits little or no nitrogen dioxide as it cooks, however, and electric stoves produce no NO2. “It’s the fuel, not the food,” said Jackson. “Electric stoves emit no nitrogen dioxide or benzene. If you own a gas or propane stove, you need to reduce pollutant exposures using ventilation.”Home Size MattersEven in larger homes, concentrations of nitrogen dioxide routinely spiked to unhealthy levels during and after cooking even if a range hood was on and venting air outdoors. But people who live in homes smaller than 800 square feet – about the size of a small two-bedroom apartment – are exposed to twice as much nitrogen dioxide over the course of a year compared to the national average, and four times more compared to those living in the largest homes, upwards of 3,000 square feet.Because home size makes such a difference, there are also differences in exposure across racial, ethnic, and income groups. Compared to the national average, the researchers found long-term NO2 exposure is 60% higher among American Indian and Alaska Native households, and 20% higher among Black and Hispanic or Latino households. This exposure to indoor air pollution from gas stoves compounds the fact that exposure to outdoor sources of nitrogen dioxide pollution, such as vehicle exhaust, is also typically higher among people in poorer, often minority, communities.“People in poorer communities can’t always afford to change their appliances, or perhaps they rent and can’t replace appliances because they don’t own them,” Jackson said. “People in smaller homes are also breathing more pollution for the same stove use.”Reference: “Nitrogen dioxide exposure, health outcomes, and associated demographic disparities 3 due to gas and propane combustion by U.S. stoves” 3 May 2024, Science Advances.Jackson is also a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and Precourt Institute for Energy. Additional Stanford co-authors include Metta Nicholson, a PhD student in the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (E-IPER); Colin Finnegan, a laboratory manager in the Department of Earth System Science; and Earth system science postdoctoral scholars Zutao Ouyang and Anchal Garg.This research was supported by HT, LLC.

People with gas and propane stoves breathe more unhealthy nitrogen dioxide. Households with gas or propane stoves regularly breathe unhealthy levels of nitrogen dioxide, a...

Kitchen Stove

A study has revealed that households using gas or propane stoves face significant exposure to nitrogen dioxide (NO2), which can lead to health issues like asthma and even premature death. The study conducted by researchers from various institutions, including Stanford, showed that NO2 levels in homes can remain elevated for hours after stove use, affecting even those not directly in the kitchen.

People with gas and propane stoves breathe more unhealthy nitrogen dioxide.

Households with gas or propane stoves regularly breathe unhealthy levels of nitrogen dioxide, a study of air pollution in U.S. homes found.

“I didn’t expect to see pollutant concentrations breach health benchmarks in bedrooms within an hour of gas stove use, and stay there for hours after the stove is turned off,” said Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability Professor Rob Jackson, senior author of the May 3 study in Science Advances. Pollution from gas and propane stoves isn’t just an issue for cooks or people in the kitchen, he said. “It’s the whole family’s problem.”

Among other negative health effects, breathing high levels of nitrogen dioxide, or NO2, over time can intensify asthma attacks and has been linked to decreased lung development in children and early deaths.

Although most exposure to NO2 is caused by cars and trucks burning fossil fuels, the researchers estimate that the mix of pollutants coming from gas and propane stoves overall may be responsible for as many as 200,000 current childhood asthma cases. One quarter of these can be attributed to nitrogen dioxide alone, according to the paper’s authors, who include scientists from Central California Asthma Collaborative, PSE Healthy Energy, and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

“We found that just how much gas you burn in your stove is by far the biggest factor affecting how much you’re exposed. And then, after that, do you have an effective range hood – and do you use it?” said lead study author Yannai Kashtan, a PhD student in Earth system science.

Metta Nicholson Observes Gas Burner

Stanford PhD student Metta Nicholson observes a gas burner in a home where scientists measured air pollution as part of their data collection in California, Texas, Colorado, New York, and Washington, D.C.. Credit: Rob Jackson, Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability

Little Room for Additional Exposure

Beyond asthma cases, the long-term exposure to NO2 in American households with gas stoves is high enough to cause thousands of deaths each year – possibly as many as 19,000 or 40% of the number of deaths linked annually to secondhand smoke. This estimate is based on the researchers’ new measurements and calculations of how much nitrogen dioxide people breathe at home because of gas stoves and the best available data on deaths from long-term exposure to outdoor NO2, which is regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The death toll estimate is approximate in part because it does not factor in the harmful effects of repeated exposure to extremely high levels of nitrogen dioxide in short bursts, as occurs in homes with gas stoves. It also relies on past studies of health impacts from nitrogen dioxide encountered outdoors, where additional pollutants from vehicles and power plants are present.

Stove Without Range Hood

Colin Finnegan of the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability checks a simmering pot on a gas stove that does not have a range hood. Using a range hood that vents air to the outdoors can dramatically influence how much nitrogen dioxide fills the air in a home. Credit: Rob Jackson, Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability

The researchers used sensors to measure concentrations of NO2 throughout more than 100 homes of various sizes, layouts, and ventilation methods, before, during, and after stove use. They incorporated these measurements and other data into a model powered by National Institutes for Standards and Technology (NIST) software known as CONTAM for simulating airflow, contaminant transport, and room-by-room occupant exposure in buildings. This allowed them to estimate nationwide averages and short-term exposures under a range of realistic conditions and behaviors, and cross-check model outputs against their home measurements.

The results show that nationwide, typical use of a gas or propane stove increases exposure to nitrogen dioxide by an estimated 4 parts per billion, averaged over a year. That’s three quarters of the way to the nitrogen dioxide exposure level that the World Health Organization recognizes as unsafe in outdoor air. “That’s excluding all outdoor sources combined, so it makes it much more likely you’re going to exceed the limit,” said Kashtan.

Understanding How Gas Stoves Affect Health

The study is the latest in a series from Jackson’s group at Stanford looking at indoor air pollution from gas stoves. Earlier studies documented the rate at which gas stoves emit other pollutants, including the greenhouse gas methane and the carcinogen benzene. But to understand the implications of stove emissions for human health, the researchers needed to find out how much pollutants spread through a home, build up, and eventually dissipate. “We’re moving from measuring how much pollution comes from stoves to how much pollution people actually breathe,” said Jackson, who is the Michelle and Kevin Douglas Provostial Professor in Earth System Science.

With any fuel source, particle pollution can rise from food cooking in a hot pan. The new research confirms that food emits little or no nitrogen dioxide as it cooks, however, and electric stoves produce no NO2. “It’s the fuel, not the food,” said Jackson. “Electric stoves emit no nitrogen dioxide or benzene. If you own a gas or propane stove, you need to reduce pollutant exposures using ventilation.”

Home Size Matters

Even in larger homes, concentrations of nitrogen dioxide routinely spiked to unhealthy levels during and after cooking even if a range hood was on and venting air outdoors. But people who live in homes smaller than 800 square feet – about the size of a small two-bedroom apartment – are exposed to twice as much nitrogen dioxide over the course of a year compared to the national average, and four times more compared to those living in the largest homes, upwards of 3,000 square feet.

Because home size makes such a difference, there are also differences in exposure across racial, ethnic, and income groups. Compared to the national average, the researchers found long-term NO2 exposure is 60% higher among American Indian and Alaska Native households, and 20% higher among Black and Hispanic or Latino households. This exposure to indoor air pollution from gas stoves compounds the fact that exposure to outdoor sources of nitrogen dioxide pollution, such as vehicle exhaust, is also typically higher among people in poorer, often minority, communities.

“People in poorer communities can’t always afford to change their appliances, or perhaps they rent and can’t replace appliances because they don’t own them,” Jackson said. “People in smaller homes are also breathing more pollution for the same stove use.”

Reference: “Nitrogen dioxide exposure, health outcomes, and associated demographic disparities 3 due to gas and propane combustion by U.S. stoves” 3 May 2024, Science Advances.

Jackson is also a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and Precourt Institute for Energy. Additional Stanford co-authors include Metta Nicholson, a PhD student in the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (E-IPER); Colin Finnegan, a laboratory manager in the Department of Earth System Science; and Earth system science postdoctoral scholars Zutao Ouyang and Anchal Garg.

This research was supported by HT, LLC.

Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of

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RFK Jr.’s Miasma Theory of Health Is Spreading

The agency is picking up Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s argument that a healthy immune system can keep even pandemic germs at bay.

Last week, the two top officials at the National Institutes of Health—the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research—debuted a new plan to help Americans weather the next pandemic: getting everyone to eat better and exercise.The standard pandemic-preparedness playbook “has failed catastrophically,” NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya and NIH Principal Deputy Director Matthew J. Memoli wrote in City Journal, a magazine and website published by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, a conservative think tank. The pair argue that finding and studying pathogens that could cause outbreaks, then stockpiling vaccines against them, is a waste of money. Instead, they say, the United States should encourage people to improve their baseline health—“whether simply by stopping smoking, controlling hypertension or diabetes, or getting up and walking more.”On its own, Bhattacharya and Memoli’s apparently serious suggestion that just being in better shape will carry the U.S. through an infectious crisis is reckless, experts told me—especially if it’s executed at the expense of other public-health responses. In an email, Andrew Nixon, the director of communications at the Department of Health and Human Services—which oversees the NIH—wrote that the agency “supports a comprehensive approach to pandemic preparedness that recognizes the importance of both biomedical tools and the factors individuals can control.” But more broadly, Bhattacharya and Memoli’s proposal reflects the spread of a dangerous philosophy that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of HHS, has been pushing for years: a dismissal of germ theory, or the notion that infectious microbes are responsible for many of the diseases that plague humankind.In his 2021 book, The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health, Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine activist, argues that modern scientists have blamed too much of infectious disease on pathogens, which he suggests are rarely problematic, unless the immune system has been compromised by poor nutrition, toxins, and other environmental stressors. He credits sanitation and nutrition for driving declines in infectious-disease deaths during the 20th century; vaccination, he has baselessly claimed, was largely ineffective and unnecessary. In his view, germs don’t pose a substantial threat to people who have done the work of “fortifying the immune system”—essentially, those who have taken their health into their own hands.In terms of general health, most Americans would benefit from improvements in diet and exercise. A strong emphasis on both has been core to the Make America Healthy Again movement, and in one important aspect, Kennedy and his allies are correct: The immune system, like other bodily systems, is sensitive to nutritional status, and when people are dealing with chronic health issues, they often fare less well against infectious threats, Melinda Beck, a nutrition and infectious-disease researcher who recently retired from the University of North Carolina, told me. Conditions such as obesity and diabetes, for instance, raise the risk of severe COVID and flu; malnutrition exacerbates the course of diseases such as tuberculosis and measles.But applied to widespread infectious outbreaks, the MAHA prescription is still deeply flawed. Being generally healthy doesn’t guarantee survival, or even better outcomes against infectious diseases—especially when an entire population encounters a pathogen against which it has no immunity. Although some evidence suggests that the 1918 flu pandemic strongly affected certain groups of people who were less healthy at baseline—including undernourished World War I soldiers—“relatively healthy people, as far as we could understand, were the main victims,” Naomi Rogers, a historian of medicine at Yale, told me. Smallpox, too, infected and killed indiscriminately. HIV has devastated many communities of young, healthy people.In his book, Kennedy relies heavily on the term miasma theory as a shorthand for preventing disease “through nutrition and by reducing exposures to environmental toxins and stresses.” He’s employing that phrase incorrectly: Historically, at least, miasma theory referred to the notion that epidemics are caused by bad air—such as toxic emanations from corpses and trash—and was the predominant way of describing disease transmission until scientists found definitive proof of infectious microbes in the late 19th century. But his choice of words is also revealing. In pitting his ideas against germ theory, he plays on a centuries-old tension between lifestyle and microbes as roots of illness.In its early days, germ theory struggled to gain traction even among physicians, many of whom dismissed the idea as simplistic, Nancy Tomes, a historian at Stony Brook University, told me. After the idea became foundational to medicine, scientists still had to work to convince some members of the public that microbes could fell healthy people, too. In the early days of polio vaccination, when the virus still ran rampant in the U.S., some vaccine-skeptical Americans insisted that children were falling seriously ill primarily because their parents weren’t managing their kids’ nutrition well and “had disrupted the child’s internal health,” Rogers told me.Over time, as pharmaceutical companies made global businesses out of selling antibiotics, vaccines, and antivirals, the products became a symbol, for some people, of how germ theory had taken over medicine. Accepting vaccines came to represent trust in scientific expertise, Rogers said; misgivings about the industry, in contrast, might translate into rejecting those offerings. In that skeptical slice of the American public and amid the rise of alternative-wellness practitioners, Kennedy has found purchase for his ideas about nutrition as a cure-all.Since taking over as health secretary, he has on occasion made that distrust in germ theory national policy. In his book, he wrote that “when a starving African child succumbs to measles, the miasmist attributes the death to malnutrition; germ theory proponents (a.k.a. virologists) blame the virus.” Earlier this year, when measles raged through undervaccinated regions of West Texas, the secretary acted out his own miasmist theory of the outbreak, urging Americans to rely on vitamin-A supplementation as a first-line defense, even though deficiency of that vitamin is rare here.But germ theory is key to understanding why outbreaks become pandemics—not because people’s general health is wanting, but because a pathogen is so unfamiliar to so many people’s immune systems at once that it is able to spread unchecked. Pandemics then end because enough people acquire sufficient immunity to that pathogen. Vaccination, when available, remains the safest way to gain that immunity—and, unlike lifestyle choices, it can represent a near-universal strategy to shore up defenses against disease. Not all of the risk factors that worsen disease severity are tunable by simply eating better or working out more. For COVID and many other respiratory diseases, for instance, old age and pregnancy remain some of the biggest risk factors. Genetic predispositions to certain medical conditions, or structural barriers to changing health habits—not just lack of willpower—can make people vulnerable to disease, too.In their article, Bhattacharya and Memoli purport to be arguing against specific strategies of pandemic preparedness, most prominently the controversial type of gain-of-function research that can involve altering the disease-causing traits of pathogens, and has been restricted by the Trump administration. But the pair also mischaracterize the country’s current approach to pandemics, which, in addition to calling for virus research and vaccine development, prioritizes measures such as surveillance, international partnerships, and improved health-care capacity, Nahid Bhadelia, the director of the Center on Emerging Infectious Diseases at Boston University, told me. And Bhattacharya and Memoli’s alternative approach cuts against the most basic logic of public health—that the clearest way to help keep a whole population healthy is to offer protections that work on a societal level and that will reach as many people as possible. Fixating on personal nutrition and exercise regimens as pandemic preparedness would leave many people entirely unprotected. At the same time, “we’re basically setting up society to blame someone” in the event that they fall ill, Jennifer Nuzzo, the director of the pandemic center at the Brown University School of Public Health, told me.Kennedy’s book bemoans that the “warring philosophies” of miasma and germ theory have become a zero-sum game. And yet, at HHS, he and his officials are presenting outbreak preparedness—and the rest of public health—as exactly that: The country should worry about environment or pathogens; it should be either pushing people to eat better or stockpiling vaccines. Over email, Nixon told me that “encouraging healthier habits is one way to strengthen resilience alongside vaccines, treatments, and diagnostics developed through NIH-funded research.” But this year, under pressure from the Trump administration, the NIH has cut funding to hundreds of vaccine- and infectious-disease focused research projects; elsewhere at HHS, officials canceled nearly half a billion dollars’ worth of contracts geared toward developing mRNA vaccines.The reality is that both environment and pathogens often influence the outcome of disease, and both should be addressed. Today’s public-health establishment might not subscribe to the 19th-century version of miasma theory, but the idea that environmental and social factors shape people’s health is still core to the field. “They’re saying you can only do one thing at a time,” Bhadelia told me. “I don’t think we have to.”

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Clinicians can help address environmental toxics in reproductive health, international experts say

In a recent opinion paper published in the International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics, the International Federation of Obstetrics and Gynecology (FIGO) addresses how exposures to environmental toxics — including endocrine disrupting chemicals — have a wide range of impacts on reproductive health, and how clinicians can play a role in addressing this issue.In short: Extensive research has linked exposure to environmental toxics with an increased risk of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), endometriosis, uterine fibroids, hormonally mediated cancers, menopause, and both female and male infertility. The key mechanisms behind these impacts include hormone disruption, oxidative stress, inflammation, and epigenetic changes that can affect multiple generations.FIGO emphasizes that harm from environmental toxics can be addressed, and that clinicians play a crucial role in ensuring environmental factors are meaningfully considered as a part of patient care. Key quote: “As trusted health advisors, obstetricians and gynecologists (OBGYNs) have an essential role in integrating environmental health into routine gynecologic and fertility care.” Why this matters: In this opinion paper, FIGO argues that clinicians should incorporate environmental health into routine care, and provides practical strategies to do so. Some of these strategies include taking environmental histories, counseling patients on risk reduction and healthy lifestyles, recognizing high-risk settings (e.g., occupational exposures), and advising patients on simple steps to reduce exposure — particularly during sensitive windows like preconception, pregnancy, puberty, and menopause. Clinicians should be aware of regional environmental health alerts, such as air quality advisories or contamination events. In addition, clinicians can advocate for policy change.Related EHN coverage: Chemical mixtures may impact fertility and IVF success, new study findsUnderstanding how the environment affects pregnant people’s healthMore resources: Additional International Federation of Obstetrics and Gynecology (FIGO) statements and opinions relating to the environment:FIGO opinion on reproductive health impacts of exposure to toxic environmental chemicalsFIGO calls for removal of PFAS from global useRemoval of glyphosate from global usageClimate Crisis and HealthStatement on Draft Strategy on health, environment and climate changeToxic chemicals and environmental contaminants in prenatal vitaminsDeNicola, Nathaniel et al. for International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics. Sept. 26, 2025

In a recent opinion paper published in the International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics, the International Federation of Obstetrics and Gynecology (FIGO) addresses how exposures to environmental toxics — including endocrine disrupting chemicals — have a wide range of impacts on reproductive health, and how clinicians can play a role in addressing this issue.In short: Extensive research has linked exposure to environmental toxics with an increased risk of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), endometriosis, uterine fibroids, hormonally mediated cancers, menopause, and both female and male infertility. The key mechanisms behind these impacts include hormone disruption, oxidative stress, inflammation, and epigenetic changes that can affect multiple generations.FIGO emphasizes that harm from environmental toxics can be addressed, and that clinicians play a crucial role in ensuring environmental factors are meaningfully considered as a part of patient care. Key quote: “As trusted health advisors, obstetricians and gynecologists (OBGYNs) have an essential role in integrating environmental health into routine gynecologic and fertility care.” Why this matters: In this opinion paper, FIGO argues that clinicians should incorporate environmental health into routine care, and provides practical strategies to do so. Some of these strategies include taking environmental histories, counseling patients on risk reduction and healthy lifestyles, recognizing high-risk settings (e.g., occupational exposures), and advising patients on simple steps to reduce exposure — particularly during sensitive windows like preconception, pregnancy, puberty, and menopause. Clinicians should be aware of regional environmental health alerts, such as air quality advisories or contamination events. In addition, clinicians can advocate for policy change.Related EHN coverage: Chemical mixtures may impact fertility and IVF success, new study findsUnderstanding how the environment affects pregnant people’s healthMore resources: Additional International Federation of Obstetrics and Gynecology (FIGO) statements and opinions relating to the environment:FIGO opinion on reproductive health impacts of exposure to toxic environmental chemicalsFIGO calls for removal of PFAS from global useRemoval of glyphosate from global usageClimate Crisis and HealthStatement on Draft Strategy on health, environment and climate changeToxic chemicals and environmental contaminants in prenatal vitaminsDeNicola, Nathaniel et al. for International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics. Sept. 26, 2025

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Thousands of Tunisian Doctors Strike, Say Health System Close to Collapse

By Tarek AmaraTUNIS (Reuters) -Thousands of young doctors went on strike across Tunisia on Wednesday to demand higher pay and warn of an impending...

TUNIS (Reuters) -Thousands of young doctors went on strike across Tunisia on Wednesday to demand higher pay and warn of an impending collapse of the health system, part of a broader wave of social unrest convulsing the country.A spate of environmental and anti-government protests prompted by a worsening economic crisis and disruptions in public services has posed the biggest challenge to President Kais Saied since he seized all power in 2021."We are exhausted, underpaid and working in a system that is breaking down," said Marwa, who declined to give her surname, while attending a protest rally in the capital Tunis with hundreds of other doctors."If nothing changes, more doctors will leave and the crisis will only deepen," she added.The protesters, wearing white coats, brandished placards that read "Dignity for doctors" and "Save our hospitals" as they gathered near Tunisia's parliament.As well as low wages, the protesters complained of outdated equipment and shortages of essential medical supplies, factors which they said were fuelling a growing exodus of young health professionals to Europe and the Gulf.“As long as the authorities ignore our demands, we will continue to escalate, resist and lead the social movement in the country," Wajih Dhakkar, head of the Young Doctors’ Organisation, told Reuters.The Health Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.President Saied has accused what he describes as conspirators and infiltrators of fabricating crises in various sectors in order to undermine the state.Tunisia has seen strikes over pay by transport workers and bank employees in recent months, while the southern city of Gabes has been a focal point of protests over a pollution crisis blamed on a state-owned chemical plant.(Reporting By Tarek AmaraEditing by Gareth Jones)Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.Photos You Should See – Nov. 2025

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First, the frogs died. Then people got sick.

An emerging area of research is uncovering hidden links between nature and human health.

First, the frogs died. Then people got sick.An emerging area of research is uncovering hidden links between nature and human health.This reporting was supported by the Pulitzer Center....moreThis reporting was supported by the Pulitzer Center....moreNovember 14, 2025 at 6:00 a.m. EST9 minutes agoALTOS DE CAMPANA NATIONAL PARK, Panama — Brian Gratwicke’s lunch box was full of frogs.Kneeling on the muddy rainforest floor, the biologist opened his red Coleman cooler and scooped one up. It was a Pratt’s rocket frog — about the size of a walnut, sporting black-and-white racing stripes. Gratwicke deposited the frog in a small mesh tent, a “catio” for indoor pets to glimpse the outdoors, and encouraged it to acclimate to its transitional home.“There you go,” he told it. “Look at all that nice leaf litter.” The frog darted into the carpet of leaves, unaware it had just leaped into a high-stakes experiment.Conservation biologist Brian Gratwicke searches with his team for frogs in Altos de Campana National Park in Panama.Nate Weisenbeck, a research intern with the Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project, checks on how a pair of Pratt’s rocket frogs are acclimating to the forest.Gratwicke is a conservation biologist who leads amphibian work at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute. He had flown to Panama, in the middle of rainy season, to help resurrect frog species that had vanished from the cloud forest decades ago.Whether these amphibians can strike out on their own and thrive here again is uncertain.What is becoming increasingly clear is that without them, humans are in trouble. It turns out that frogs — in biblical times regarded as a plague — are actually guardians against disease.50 Species that Save UsThis series highlights emerging research on how plants and animals protect human health – and how their disappearance is already sickening thousands of people around the world. Explore these connections in our illustrated, interactive species cards.As dozens of frog species have declined across Central America, scientists have witnessed a remarkable chain of events: With fewer tadpoles to eat mosquito larvae, rates of mosquito-borne malaria in the region have climbed, resulting in a fivefold increase in cases.The discovery of this link is part of an emerging area of research in which ecologists and economists are trying to calculate the costs of species decline.They are revealing hidden ways that thriving populations of many plants and animals — including wolves, bats, birds and trees — underpin humanity’s well-being.They are learning that without saving nature, we cannot save ourselves.The mystery of the vanishing frogsAt first, no one knew why frogs seemed to be disappearing everywhere.In Texas, some herpetologists thought egrets were eating them. In Connecticut, people accused raccoons. In Brazil, they blamed a bout of chilly weather. But the fact that so many frogs were vanishing from so many places in the early 1990s suggested something widespread but invisible was behind the decline.Karen Lips was a graduate student at the time, working with amphibians in Costa Rica, near the border with Panama. During a trip there in 1993, she couldn’t find the toads she had been studying. “Almost everything was gone,” she recalled. At first, she blamed the weather, her headlamp, her searching technique.Then she remembered a related toad species had disappeared a few hundred miles to the north. It dawned on her: Perhaps a frog-killing “wave” was sweeping from mountain to mountain.Weisenbeck works with harlequin frogs raised at the Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project in Gamboa.Lemur leaf frogs are grouped in a breeding tank with multiple males and females at the Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project.Whatever it was, she wanted to get ahead of it. She set up camp farther east, in a cloud forest in Panama. She thought she’d have many years to study the 40-odd species of frogs there. But by 1996, many of the ones she was picking up were leathery and lethargic.“Sometimes they would make one jump and it would be their last bout of energy,” recalled Lips, today an ecologist at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. “They’d make a big jump to try and escape. And then they couldn’t move anymore at all, and they would just die there.”After she helped publish a photo of an infection on the frogs’ skin, herpetologists studying wild frogs in Australia and captive ones at the National Zoo realized they were all dealing with the same disease: a fungus that would be dubbed Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, or Bd for short.The researchers swab a yellow-flecked glass frog to assess the prevalence of Bd in wild frog communities in Altos de Campana National Park.Thought to have originated in Asia or Africa, Bd may have hitched a ride on ships or planes to traverse otherwise insurmountable oceans. It now coats every continent except Antarctica (where there are no frogs).The microscopic pathogen kills by burrowing into an amphibian’s sensitive skin, blocking electrolytes and sapping muscles of their strength. Ultimately, an infected frog becomes so fatigued that its heart stops.As the fungus swept eastward through Panama, Gratwicke and his colleagues raced to rescue as many frogs as they could. They persuaded a shipping company to donate seven containers to a Smithsonian facility an hour outside Panama City. There, along the Panama Canal, they built a makeshift ark, stacking each container floor-to-ceiling with terrariums full of frogs for a captive breeding program.The Smithsonian focused on saving nine species it assessed to be in the direst state. “It’s absolute triage,” Gratwicke said. “We can’t look after 200 species.”Among those targeted for preservation was the Panamanian golden frog, a national icon and symbol of good luck that is depicted on banners and beer cans.“It’s a huge weight of responsibility on our shoulders,” Gratwicke said. “Because if we screw this up, we screw it up for an entire species.”This year, the researchers also brought into captivity a population of Pratt’s rocket frogs that had disappeared in the national park but survived elsewhere, possibly because they had developed some immunity to the fungus. Gratwicke and his colleagues were relocating two dozen of those potentially resistant frogs to Altos de Campana. After two weeks, the researchers would unzip them from the tents, with the hope that the transplanted frogs might help repopulate the park.Globally, frog populations have crashed as a result of Bd. The fungus has affected more than 500 amphibian species, decimating at least 90 to the point where they are thought to be extinct in the wild. For the researchers watching it all unfold over the past three decades, it was clear a frog apocalypse was underway. The fungus, along with climate change and habitat loss, has made amphibians the most vulnerable group of vertebrates on Earth.Lips began studying the cascading effects of these massive losses. She found algae thrived in spots where there were no tadpoles to eat it. Snake populations, meanwhile, dwindled with fewer adult frogs to eat.When describing this upheaval in a call with other scientists, she piqued the interest of Michael Springborn, an environmental economist at the University of California at Davis. “I’d heard a little bit about Bd,” he recalled, “but I was embarrassed to learn that I didn’t really understand how impactful that had been.” The two decided to work together.Lemur leaf frogs are among the lab-raised specimens at the Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project.With statistical tools more commonly used in economics, they mapped the frog die-offs and spread of the fungus county-by-county across Costa Rica and Panama.Then they compared that spread to county-level health records of malaria in humans. They found a striking pattern: a fivefold spike in malaria cases after the fungus arrived and the frogs died. Lips, Springborn and their colleagues published the discovery in 2022 in the journal Environmental Research Letters.The region’s tapered shape, bound on either side by the Caribbean and the Pacific, allowed them to track the spread of the disease in detail. “We got lucky in a sense that there’s this … narrow strip where you had Bd arguably channeled through,” Springborn said.Some herpetologists, Lips said, would be content to stay in their lane and just “count the frogs.” But she anticipated that “if we could link it to people, maybe we could get more traction. Maybe people would care.”Biologists have long documented ways in which people benefit from nature — what, in academic circles, are called “ecosystem services.” Bees pollinate crops, trees suck heat-trapping carbon dioxide out of the air, and coral reefs guard coastal communities from storms and foster fish for food.But the interdisciplinary effort to uncover the relationship between biodiversity and human health — an approach dubbed “One Health” — is just beginning to tease out even deeper connections.The researchers are working toward the release of Panamanian golden frogs, an icon of the country.In the United States, researchers have shown that a collapse of insect-eating bat populations prompted farmers to use more pesticide on crops, which in turn led to a higher human infant mortality rate.Around the Great Lakes, the reemergence of gray wolves has had the surprising effect of keeping motorists safe. The canines prowl along roads while hunting, spooking deer from crossing and reducing collisions with cars.Also in North America, invasive emerald ash borers devastated ash trees, contributing to elevated temperatures and an increase in cardiovascular and respiratory deaths.India may have witnessed the most astounding ecological breakdown of them all. After vultures experienced a mass die-off, the livestock carcasses they once scavenged piled up. Packs of feral dogs took the place of vultures, resulting in a rise in deaths from rabies.Eyal Frank, a University of Chicago economist who helped connect the dots in the bat and vulture case studies, said we often don’t realize how crucial a plant or animal is to our well-being until it is gone.“Why preserve biodiversity?” Frank said. “We might not realize now that this species is important. But we might realize in the future that it’s important.”By 2012, the frog-killing fungus had conquered Panama, reaching its easternmost point, the Darién Gap.A remote and roadless jungle, the area is known as a treacherous stretch for migrants trying to make their way from North to South America. The resident population is small and mostly made up of Indigenous tribes.Jando Mejia, from the seminomadic Wounaan people, figures he was bitten when he was visiting his mother there in 2023. When a mosquito latched onto his skin and sucked his blood, it must have dropped a single-celled parasite called a plasmodium into his body.Within days the parasite began wreaking havoc, invading and multiplying within his red blood cells. His eyes and tongue turned yellow. His head felt like it was splitting open with pain.“I couldn’t taste food,” he said. “I lost my appetite, and I felt dizzy and weak. I couldn’t do anything.”Mejia, 23, believes he contracted malaria in eastern Panama.Mejia was at that point staying with his sister in central Panama. Her house is on concrete stilts to deter snakes and other wildlife, but its plywood walls and open-air windows provide little protection from buzzing mosquitos. Smoke wafts from spiral-shaped repellents to keep the insects away. Nearby, vendors in the village sell golden frog figurines.His sister set up a bed for him on the floor. His mother made the journey from the Darién Gap to help. “I was in bed for a week,” he said. “I could hardly remember anything.”Even after the worst of the symptoms subsided, it was weeks before he had enough strength to return to his $15-a-day job on a farm growing coffee and plantains.“He wasn’t normal,” his sister, Chanita Mejia, recalled. “Even climbing a small hill was hard. He felt tired.”By the time he could go back to work, he had lost out on a month of income.Telbinia Toscon, a traditional craftswoman in the Embera village, lost her mother to malaria.Frogs are a recurring image in Panamanian crafts.No single case of malaria can be attributed to the wave of frog deaths. And other factors, too, may have contributed to the rise in cases. José Ricardo Rovira, a mosquito researcher at Indicasat, a Panamanian institute, noted that paths made by migrants crisscrossing the Darién have further enabled the spread of malaria-carrying mosquitos.But Springborn, Lips and their colleagues estimate there were tens of thousands of additional cases of the disease in Panama and Costa Rica in the decade following the amphibian decline. Although it’s difficult to estimate, that increase in cases would have led to “a handful” of additional deaths each year, Springborn said.Rovira knows how debilitating the disease can be. He vividly remembers the fever and chills he experienced after twice contracting malaria while setting mosquito traps in the Darién.He said he doesn’t fear malaria, but has learned to respect it. Now 75, he appreciates he must be cautious. “I’m not going out to the field much anymore,” he said.Working to restore the frogsOn Gratwicke’s recent Panama trip, after depositing the Pratt’s rocket frogs in their tent, he turned to the question of how much Bd was still out there.He bounded down a series of waterfalls on a rumbling creek, sweeping his flashlight along the muddy embankment. The light caught a glint of yellow. It was a Panama rocket frog, a related species. True to its name, it shot off after being spotted. The hunt was on.With a stick, Gratwicke prodded the fugitive frog into the water. “Just wait, he’ll come up,” he said leaning over the stream. The birdlike chirps of rocket frogs used to fill this gully, he explained. Now, save for the rush of the water, it was mostly silent.“Oh, I got it!” Gratwicke yelped after reaching his gloved hands into the stream. Pulling out a long cotton swab, he dabbed the frogs’ feet, thighs and belly before letting it go. (Lab tests on the swabs would later reveal that Bd was on a third of the frogs plucked from the water that day.)Gratwicke and his team listen to frog calls while walking through Altos de Campana National Park.Conservation scientists Julie Dogger, Oliver Granucci and Orlando Garces check on tadpole development in Altos de Campana National Park. Next stop was the encampment of a crowned tree frog. This chocolate brown frog had been bred in a Smithsonian lab, and after two weeks acclimating to the forest, it was ready for release — into a still perilous place.Nate Weisenbeck, Gratwicke’s colleague from the Smithsonian, reached up and unlatched the front of a mesh cube nailed to a tree teetering on the mountainside.“This is a pilot,” Gratwicke said. “Because it’s the first time this has ever been done, you can’t really predict all the ways in which things can go wrong.”The researchers are trying to set their frogs up with the best shot at survival, but don’t know if they will succumb to the fungus or other predators. (The work is supported financially by the Bezos Earth Fund, a philanthropic initiative of Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos, as well as the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, Zoo New England and the Panamanian government.)Weisenbeck had installed a variety of possible shelters for the frog to choose next: a hollow stalk of bamboo, a stack of black plastic pots, a wooden birdhouse.When the researchers came back about six hours later, wearing headlamps to navigate the pitch-black jungle at night, all those potential homes were empty.Weisenbeck unfurled a six-pronged antenna on a device that beeped to indicate whether he was homing in on the tracker tied to the frog’s back.A metamorphosing lemur leaf frog tadpole hangs on the edge of Dogger’s net. A crowned tree frog wears a radio transmitter to enable tracking within the national park.He circled the tree: beep… beep…He was careful with his feet, so as not to inadvertently step on a frog. The device grew louder. Beep… Beep…He twisted to prevent the antenna from getting tangled in the vegetation. BEEP… BEEP… BEEP…“Well done, Nate,” Gratwicke said. Weisenbeck bent down to capture one last photo of his frog, resting on a cigar plant about 30 feet from the tree.“Yeah, this could be the last time we see him,” Weisenbeck said. “He’s wild.”Two variable harlequin frogs at the Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project in Gamboa.About this storyThis article is part of The Washington Post’s “Species That Save Us” series, highlighting hidden links between nature and human health. Photos and video by Melina Mara. Design and development by Hailey Haymond. Editing by Marisa Bellack, Juliet Eilperin, John Farrell, Dominique Hildebrand and Joe Moore. Copy editing by Mike Cirelli.

Health
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Not so Golden Brown: DJ plays 24-hours of No 2s in Lake District sewage protest

Radio host uses chart songs that didn’t quite make top spot to highlight issue of Windermere pollutionIf you Sit Down and wonder why Britain’s streams, rivers and lakes are so filthy, you’re probably Holding Out for a Hero to halt this Scandalous discharge of sewage.Step forward the Lake District Radio DJ Lee Durrant, who will go Radio Ga Ga with a 24-hour live broadcasting marathon on Friday, playing songs that peaked at No 2 in the charts to highlight the ongoing stench of not quite Golden Brown “number twos” floating downstream. Continue reading...

If you Sit Down and wonder why Britain’s streams, rivers and lakes are so filthy, you’re probably Holding Out for a Hero to halt this Scandalous discharge of sewage.Step forward the Lake District Radio DJ Lee Durrant, who will go Radio Ga Ga with a 24-hour live broadcasting marathon on Friday, playing songs that peaked at No 2 in the charts to highlight the ongoing stench of not quite Golden Brown “number twos” floating downstream.If you’re fuming about the injustice of Cry Me a River or Born Slippy being left off the top spot, you may take comfort from pop classics being coopted to fight the injustice of illegal sewage spills, which is risking human health and killing wildlife in the Lake District, despite its status as a national park and world heritage site.“What’s more shocking? Fairytale of New York never making it to Christmas No 1, or United Utilities dumping sewage into Windermere and paying themselves huge dividends?” said Durrant, who begins his broadcasting marathon at 8am on 14 November. “We’re based in the Lake District so we’re passionate about what’s happening to our lakes, but it’s become a wider issue across the country and around the world with sewage-dumping in what we’d assume would be clean waterways.”skip past newsletter promotionThe planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essentialPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionBetween playing number twos with riverine resonances from Take That’s The Flood to Dirty Cash by the Adventures of Stevie V, Durrant will be joined on the community radio station by guests including campaigners from Save Windermere to Surfers Against Sewage, environmental experts and representatives from water companies.Windermere was found to have high levels of bacteria found in human faeces throughout this summer, according to comprehensive analysis of water quality in England’s largest lake. Only 14% of England’s rivers and lakes meet good ecological standards.“I’m sort of looking forward to it and sort of dreading it,” said Durrant of his No 2 marathon. “I’m predicting the witching hour of 3am will be when I’ll struggle. I might need to play some heavy rock to get me through that.”Winds of Change might go down well in the Lakes.

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