[HN Gopher] Indoor wood burning raises women's lung cancer risk ...
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Indoor wood burning raises women's lung cancer risk by 43%
Author : geox
Score : 164 points
Date : 2023-10-08 12:58 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.sciencedirect.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.sciencedirect.com)
| Proven wrote:
| [dead]
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| In my vacation house (where I went to live for one full winter
| season), I turned the fireplace into an enclosed (still wood-
| fueled) fireplace: there's a fan (if I want to) but it's not
| blowing smoke, it's blowing warmth from the warmed up "firebox"
| (whatever that is called) inside the house.
|
| It's day and night compared to that same house back when it had a
| regular open fireplace: smoke would drift inside the house, no
| matter how cautious I'd be. And the efficiency was terribly bad.
|
| Now I still get to enjoy the view and once the fire is well
| started and the smoke correctly goes through the chimney, I can
| even open the enclosed fireplace's for a while and hear the
| crackling / get the full ambiance.
|
| Lovely. I hope to go there in december. Falling asleep in front
| of the fireplace is one of my greatest joy in life.
|
| It did cost about 5 K EUR IIRC (to transform the open fireplace
| into an enclosed one) but then warming the house with wood is
| super cheap (an enclosed fireplace is much more energy efficient
| than an open fireplace).
|
| FWIW I warmed the house during the entire summer with five
| "steres de bois" [1] (an old french unit that isn't used for
| anything anymore beside wood logs meant to be used as fuel), paid
| 60 EUR each. So 300 EUR to warm the house (south east of France,
| mild winter).
|
| BTW: house in the middle of nowhere, hardly any neighbors. So
| they don't get my smoke and I don't get their.
|
| [1] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/St%C3%A8re
| ahaucnx wrote:
| I second this. My sister has an enclosed fireplace and last
| time I visited her, I measured the air quality next to it and
| was surprised to find no elevated PM2.5 inside the room.
|
| However keeping the door just a bit open emitted a lot of smoke
| into the room and gave a completely picture.
|
| So I would recommend measuring the air quality in your home if
| you run any fire place.
|
| I should probably write a blog post about it sometime.
| X6S1x6Okd1st wrote:
| Yup I got a pm2.5 & AQI monitor a couple years ago and was so
| excited to have a fireplace in my new house, but trying it
| with the monitor showed me I really shouldn't. I am
| considering an enclosed fireplace to still be able to use it.
| I am now wondering if just emitting it into the air (out of
| the chimney) is acceptable.
|
| EDIT: also it's been shocking to check on it while cooking,
| our vent hood is mediocre to bad so we end up keeping a door
| open most of the time we are cooking
| desiarnezjr wrote:
| Is this a modern wood stove or insert? I recently bought
| one for a new home we're building, and from my research
| they're incredibly efficient these days. Not installed yet
| so we will see, I suppose.
| X6S1x6Okd1st wrote:
| Open hearth
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Does it have power? 5K buys ducted heat pump with built in HRV.
| Or you could've heated your cabin for a decade just using space
| heaters...
| whoopsie wrote:
| Tell this to Big Candle
| zemvpferreira wrote:
| Great prospective study. If I'm reading correctly, using a wood-
| fired stove/fireplace for around a month per year for 10 years or
| more will increase your chance of lung cancer by ~70%.
|
| To put that in perspective, smoking regularly in the same time-
| span increases your chance of lung cancer by over 20x.
| ghusto wrote:
| > using a wood-fired stove/fireplace for around a month per
| year for 10 years or more will increase your chance of lung
| cancer by ~70%
|
| Really?! I just started using a wood fireplace, so this
| concerns me. I wish I understood things like "Cox regression"
| and other sciency things so I could trust this study.
| sampo wrote:
| > smoking regularly in the same time-span increases your chance
| of lung cancer by over 20x.
|
| But what if you were to smoke only for the same amount as you
| mention using the fireplace, around a month per year?
| zemvpferreira wrote:
| You'll have trouble finding many people to study.
|
| From the evidence I've seen, intensity of smoke exposure is
| much more problematic than volume. Light smokers still have
| 5-10x the chance of developing lung cancer than a non-smoker.
|
| That might be a good first estimate for smokers who only
| smoke one month out of the year.
| cannonpalms wrote:
| You're conflating correlation with causation. Adding only a
| single factor under study (use of wood-burning fireplaces) will
| not necessarily produce the measured result; it could have been
| the result of a confluence of factors correlated with use of
| wood-burning stoves that you personally may lack.
| zemvpferreira wrote:
| You've clearly not read the study at all or live in a world
| where only perfect double-blind studies are acceptable. I
| wish we could all live there but sometimes you have to make-
| do with reality.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| Smoke is a highly likely casual factor. You don't really win
| any points for saying IT COULD BE CORRELATION. This one seems
| like an extremely safe bet. It's not even a huge effect size.
| adolph wrote:
| What is the base rate? Increasing a very small number by 1.7x
| or 20x is still a small number. One might say "oh any increase
| is too much." I acknowledge that and counter that there is
| opportunity cost to addressing topics of small effect. For
| example, I would expect that if unconstrained atmospheric
| combustion was a big problem, it would show up in occupations
| with high likelihood of exposure.
|
| _"Occupational exposure as a firefighter" has been evaluated
| by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and
| classified as "possibly carcinogenic to humans", with strongest
| evidence for testicular cancer, prostate cancer and non-Hodgkin
| lymphoma._
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7254920/
| 2devnull wrote:
| So merely owning a stove but never burning wood gets you to HR
| 1.42. That makes the 1.6 for occasional use less bothersome
| (ymmv).
| bilsbie wrote:
| Maybe you're more likely to live near other houses that do use
| theirs.
| 2devnull wrote:
| Precisely. And those houses may be in areas that have
| relatively more confounding factors (eg gas generator use
| will be higher).
| [deleted]
| snapplebobapple wrote:
| Whats the absolute risk change? Relative risk is utterly
| meaningless for actually deciding what to do in the context of
| alternate choices.
| mrangle wrote:
| Buy an air filter with an AQI meter. Not only will you never use
| your wood stove again, you may end up cutting down on your
| pancake Saturdays.
| kevinmchugh wrote:
| Losing hot breakfast on the weekend is a very strong argument
| against monitoring my air quality
| mrits wrote:
| A good vent hood does wonders here
| nkurz wrote:
| Presuming you've actually done this test, I think it must
| depend on your woodstove and how it is installed. We heat
| almost exclusively with wood, and have a modern EPA compliant
| wood stove connected to a continuous stainless steel liner that
| runs to the top of the chimney. We got an AQI meter based on
| comments on like this.
|
| The AQI meter showed that there was no perceptible difference
| in air quality with the wood stove on versus off. Startup shows
| some smoke that decreases in an hour, but continuous operation
| shows no effect. Since we are in a cold climate, we burn
| essentially 24-7 for the entire winter, and thus startup
| effects can mostly be ignored.
|
| You are right that there was a tremendous decrease in air
| quality when cooking, especially anything that was fried. So I
| agree that you might cut down on pancakes, but my evidence does
| not back your assertion you will "never use a woodstove again".
| To the contrary, using the meter tremendously reduced my
| worries about indoor air quality due to using the woodstove.
|
| Did you actually do this test and find different results? What
| sort of system were you testing?
| jwr wrote:
| Does the smoke magically disappear once it exists your
| chimney? Because your neighbors might get AQI results that
| aren't that great -- or yours might deteriorate, too, if
| everybody around you starts heating with wood.
|
| It's just not a good idea, period.
| recursive wrote:
| There's nothing magic about it. Sufficiently high
| combustion temperature reduces particulates.
| nkurz wrote:
| I was responding to the specific claim that woodstoves
| cause measurable problems with indoor air quality in the
| houses where they are used. I'm willing to believe they
| can, but in my direct experience, mine didn't. I live in a
| rural enough area (less than 1 house per sq km) that my
| neighbors are unlikely to be affected by my woodburning,
| and I am not likely to be affected by theirs.
|
| The question (and I agree it's open) is what effect
| dispersed burning has on the larger scale environment. My
| current belief is that local wood harvesting and burning in
| a modern efficient stove is better than the alternatives
| currently available to me. If you have evidence to the
| contrary, please provide it rather than just making blanket
| statements.
| chongli wrote:
| A modern wood stove doesn't emit much smoke at all. It
| recirculates smoke through the combustion chamber (and/or
| through a catalyst) which causes secondary combustion. This
| greatly increases the energy efficiency of the stove and
| gives you a much cleaner burn. Not only are you not
| polluting your house with wood smoke particles but you
| aren't polluting your neighbours either!
| Applejinx wrote:
| This. Mine has the recirculation thing with extra air
| channels and a big ol' soapstone wall interposed between
| the combustion chamber and the exhaust, and you can't
| just start it up full of wood, you have to fire it
| properly at which point it's hot enough to burn its own
| smoke, which you can see happening. And then once it's
| going, engage the catalyst, which also burns the smoke
| more, until there's basically nothing left.
|
| No more 'nice cozy smell of neighborhood wood fires', but
| on every other possible metric, way way better.
| newsclues wrote:
| Yeah, comparing an old out of date stove/fireplace from
| peoples memory to modern high efficiency models seems rather
| disingenuous on the part of commenters.
| stephen_g wrote:
| I still feel like there must be a difference in particulate
| matter from things like combustion products (which we know are
| very bad) and those from cooking - as long as nothing is
| getting hot enough to char and smoke... Still a good idea to
| have a good exhaust fan in your range hood (and pick induction
| over gas if possible) but still...
| kibwen wrote:
| _> and those from cooking_
|
| I presume the parent commenter is referring to cooking using
| a gas stovetop, rather than to any particulate emitted by the
| food itself.
| [deleted]
| sambeau wrote:
| I recently did a deep dive into woodsmoke as I couldn't
| understand how ~2 million years of evolution with woodsmoke
| hadn't rendered us completely immune to its effects.
|
| I couldn't at that time find a paper that showed that it was very
| harmful to humans, just a lot proving that it was harmful to
| mice, rats, rabbits, and guinea pigs (and a lot of forwards
| stating the dangers then linking to another animal research
| paper)--which bothered me--rodents don't have ~2 millions years
| of woodsmoke in their evolution history. I found papers about
| forest fires that some showed bad effects other were inconclusive
| and wouldn't;t draw conclusions as there were too much smoke from
| other combustable substances mixed into the smoke. I also found a
| paper about firefighters exposed to woodsmoke that found no ill
| effects on them.
|
| So I remained unconvinced.
|
| But this paper is different: not animals, large study, evidence.
| SO I will read it in-depth.
|
| But I am still baffled. How could over a million years of
| evolution not have bred this out of us? I'm genuinely curious.
| cstrahan wrote:
| Why _should_ you expect ~2 million years of evolution to bread
| that out of us?
|
| The ability to start and control fires for warmth and cooking
| purposes greatly increases the odds of survival for individuals
| and their offspring.
|
| If I may personify evolution as form of rhetoric: evolution
| doesn't care if you limp along through a painful life, or if
| your genes guarantee a horrific death at the end of it.
| Evolution only cares about your ability to produce offspring
| that in turn reach maturity and produce offspring of their own,
| and so on.
|
| Resources are finite in this world, so sure, the fittest tend
| to outcompete less fit creatures, and the former will
| perpetuate its genes while the latter won't. This is where the
| notion of "survival of the fittest comes from". But it is a
| mistake to interpret that implication the other way around:
| that is, survival does not necessarily imply greater and
| greater fitness over time.
|
| Evolution isn't about species becoming the best they could be,
| it's _only_ about being good enough.
| 7952 wrote:
| For evolution to happen a trait needs to effect reproductive
| success. Diseases that hit later in life will only have a
| minimal effect. Your kids are already grown by the time you get
| cancer and probably having children of their own. There may be
| slightly less resources available to raise the next generation
| if you die but the effect is minimal. Genes that help/hurt the
| survival of young people are going to have a much a more
| profound effect and influence evolution more.
| not_your_vase wrote:
| Maybe we just devolved.
|
| Most of the people have been living close to nature up to like
| a 100 years ago. And today? I have like 8 allergies, and I have
| no idea about the root cause of 6 of them. I would die in 2
| days on a field of random weed, by sneezing myself to death.
| And I suspect I am far from the record holder in this site.
| hollerith wrote:
| >I couldn't understand how ~2 million years of evolution with
| woodsmoke hadn't rendered us completely immune
|
| There's strong evidence for use of fire going back only .5
| million years. More importantly, all existing humans are
| descended from a population that lived in sub-Saharan Africa
| till 70,000-50,000 years ago:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_African_origin_of_moder...
|
| Although that population probably used fire before migrating
| out of Africa, they probably did so only for cooking and to
| keep wild animals away and almost never used fire indoors.
| yread wrote:
| For large part of the two million years not having a fire
| killed people a lot more than lung cancer.
| sambeau wrote:
| That was certainly my top theory. Cooking saving many more
| babies than woodsmoke killed.
| nwellinghoff wrote:
| I don't get it. I thought with a properly functioning stove all
| the smoke goes outside not into the room. Same thing with a
| fireplace.
| andtong wrote:
| Perhaps some of the smoke leaks out of the stove into the room.
| Maybe a rocket mass heater[1] could help. It uses a thermal
| siphon to pull all the exhaust outside.
|
| [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_mass_heater
| nwellinghoff wrote:
| I mean wouldn't you see it? I use my fireplace all the time
| in the winter and I would classify the amount of smoke that
| gets into the room as "negligible". Especially compared to
| smoking a cigarette.Would love if this study actually
| followed up with some measurements and the "why" of actual
| fireplaces and stove setups.
| mrangle wrote:
| You can measure. Buy an AQI meter. But I recommend buying
| an air filter with an AQI meter attached, as when you see
| what the supposedly negligible amount of smoke is actually
| doing to your air quality you are going to want the former.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Wood with radon.
|
| A radon meter is a useful thing to have a home. And a moisture
| meter.
| mcpackieh wrote:
| Radon's most stable isotope has a half life of only a few
| day, so if there's radon in the wood there must also be
| uranium or thorium in the wood to create that radon, and that
| must have come from the soil. Not impossible I guess, but I
| think if trees in your area have that much uranium/thorium in
| them, your primary concern would be radon coming up through
| the ground into your house.
|
| If there's a correlation between burning wood and radon
| related health issues, I suspect it's not because of radon
| coming from the wood but rather smoke from the wood making
| residents particularly susceptible to injury from radon
| coming up from the ground. Such an effect is known to exist
| with tobacco smoke at least.
| [deleted]
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| I am no scientist but I know radon is bad, and it comes
| from underground.
|
| Underground water can contain radon, and it is an issue
| when it comes to wells and houses. Trees can suck that
| radon and when you burn wood a radon meter shows an
| increase.
| mcpackieh wrote:
| A tree could suck up water containing radon, but after
| you cut down the tree and let it dry under a shed for a
| few weeks that radon will be gone. It will have all
| decayed away because the half life is only 3.8 days. For
| firewood to still contain radon a few weeks after the
| tree was cut down, it must have a fairly substantial
| amount of uranium or thorium in it (constantly producing
| new radon.)
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Insighful, thanks. Then my radon meter must have been
| affected by something else.
| thelastparadise wrote:
| Not all.
|
| I grew up in a house that used wood as its primary means of
| heat (and two smoking parents but they smoked outside
| exclusively).
|
| These days I live in a house primarily heated by a heat pump
| (in a region where it does get below 0F on a normal winter),
| but it has a wood stove.
|
| I can't imagine a woodstove setup that doesn't leak some level
| of particulate to the inside. No matter what, you can tell
| there's wood burning inside. It is a pleasant smell (burning
| white/red oak), but probably not good for health.
|
| So even though I grew up with a wood stove burning all winter
| every winter and have one now, I seriously appreciate the heat
| pump as a clean and efficient means of heat for 90% of the
| season.
|
| To me, wood is a great emergency form of heat as we have plenty
| of deadfall where we live. But I would bot recommend it
| otherwise.
|
| And don't get me started on firewood processing...
| graeme wrote:
| If you can smell it, then is spreading through the room.
| There's no rule of airflow which says air only flows upwards.
|
| And once you can smell smoke the particulate levels are
| generally very high
| mrangle wrote:
| Even a small amount of smoke represents a thick concentration
| of particulate.
| 2devnull wrote:
| People with stoves live around other people with stoves. The
| air inside houses comes from somewhere. :) they hint at this in
| the study somewhere.
| xattt wrote:
| Lighting the fireplace causes some smoke to drift into the
| room, before the fire is hot/large enough to cause a strong
| draft.
|
| There are also some times when the wood is a dud and takes a
| long time to start.
| aaomidi wrote:
| Specifically until the chimney is hot enough. You can speed
| up the process though by using a fresh air intake for the
| stove rather than it using the air in the house.
| jskrablin wrote:
| I heat my house with a wood burning enclosed fireplace connected
| to an external air supply. Any other heating solution is kind of
| the less optimal choice when you own wood supply chain (forest
| and some tools to prepare wood for heating).
|
| But yeah all those planet saving heat pumps need some advertising
| anyway.
| mindslight wrote:
| Outdoor wood boiler. It keeps the wood mess and smoke outside.
| Plus you can either stack wood near it or use equipment to move
| it in bulk, rather than carrying wood inside by hand and re-
| stacking. They got a bad rap because of poor efficiency (the
| first generation was essentially a barrel inside a barrel) and
| people's tendency to burn trash in them, but newer models are
| two stage gasifiers just like modern wood stoves.
|
| Although honestly I kind of still want a heat pump for the
| shoulder seasons and the times I'm away.
| Eumenes wrote:
| Burn wood for many years and couldn't care less about these
| studies. If you're burning dry wood with a clean chimney and
| insure your seals are good, you're fine. There has been renewed
| interest by climate warriors to ban wood stoves (they love to
| cite women and children being "most at risk", the emotional
| argument must be present to change hearts and minds). Ironic,
| given it's mostly poor and working class people burning wood.
| Must be a big push by heat pump and geothermal industries to get
| rid of wood stoves in the name of "public health". Despite urban
| populations living with AQI magnitudes higher than rural
| populations who use these heating sources.
| abid786 wrote:
| The science speaks for itself, but to a climate skeptic that
| might not be true.
| Eumenes wrote:
| The "science" has no mentions of the stove itself, the wood
| used, how the wood was dried, the physical setup where the
| stove is being used, they also lumped in "fireplaces" which
| imo, negates the entire study, because those are open to the
| air. I'm not about to throw away 500k+ years of human history
| of burning wood because a few graduate students produced a
| paper.
| FreeFlyFreeFall wrote:
| Good points. I do think economical geothermal AC shouldn't
| be too difficult in many places, but money has a way of
| influencing things; look at the septic industry horror
| stories. I'm curious about how urban vs rural AQIs look for
| different areas. It does seem more and more like climate
| control is used to control people through moral and
| consequently legal claims, and some whistleblowers seem to
| support that idea. Any skepticism is labeled "conspiracy
| theory".
|
| Also mentioned here, modern double and triple burning
| stoves are much more efficient, and catalytic combustor
| stoves leave almost nothing but CO2 and water vapor coming
| out of the flue pipe. At least for stoves and enclosed
| fireplaces, if temporary smoke from an initial burn is
| still a concern, then I'm sure a separate pipe with a fan
| could be set up to draw air through the flue until a
| thermometer reaches a certain temperature. A fresh air
| intake should eliminate smoke leakage during startup. A
| strong flame used to start the fire, and a draft can also
| reduce the total smoke produced during this process.
| Alternative formats like rocket mass heaters may help with
| this as well.
|
| Rather than draw attention to a real danger, encourage
| education, and distribution of better technology to help
| people burn a renewable resource safely, some would rather
| ban a medium that supports the survival of the poor
| completely. And some here would condemn all wood burners as
| ignorant archaic people who poison everyone around them and
| are too unintelligent to realize it. Sam Harris's post,
| (https://www.samharris.org/blog/the-fireplace-delusion)
| also has this air of incredulity that anyone would burn
| wood since science shows that it produces harmful
| byproducts. He seems to fail to realize that wood can burn
| cleanly, and suggests that we burn gas, which we know also
| often produces harmful levels of benzene; he suggests that
| we burn nothing at all, while even the electricity we use
| comes from coal burning, and alternative "green power"
| still has a large carbon footprint at this point, no?
| Geothermal seems good, since building underground is hard
| and often causes issues with radon, but how do we make more
| heat when geothermal isn't enough? And how do we move
| forward knowing that industry often influences studies? He
| writes, "The unhappy truth about burning wood has been
| scientifically established to a moral certainty". This is
| yet another "scientist" saying, "The science is settled."
| Unfortunately for him and climate alarmists, no it hasn't
| been, and posturing himself as correct because he believes
| in "scientific rationality" while simultaneously missing
| simple solutions to simple problems seems typical for him.
| That said, I do think sharing this info with communities
| who burn wood inefficiently is a good idea, and I see why
| their arguments about tradition and it being natural are
| criticized. He seems to see no exception to this
| "traditional" attitude among those who burn wood. If these
| communities don't care about inefficient burning, and
| aren't regulated, move away; stay mobile. Alternatively,
| perhaps using an air filter with a high MERV rating helps.
|
| Why ban a viable, renewable heat source that can be used to
| teach people valuable lessons? So that they can become
| dependent on wind turbines, such as the ones that froze in
| Texas a year or two ago, leading to the deaths of many who
| were wholly dependent on electric heat? I'd rather breath
| some smoke than freeze to death anyway; banning wood
| burning is worse than imposing regulations to make it
| almost completely safe, and seeing conclusive opinions
| before people consider alternative burning systems concerns
| me, especially when the alternatives posed are often just
| as dangerous. The most important thing is educating people
| though. When they know why a safety regulation exists,
| they're much less likely to hate it and disobey it, as long
| as it doesn't restrict alternatives and freedoms that it
| shouldn't.
| pmontra wrote:
| There should be no smoke coming out from a modern stove or
| fireplace. They are enclosed, take air mostly from outside and
| blow their exhaust into the sky.
|
| Of course some smoke can come inside from the windows or aeration
| holes.
| dist-epoch wrote:
| So why do you smell them at street level if the smoke is blown
| into the sky.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| I understand that smoke is noxious, but I am still somewhat
| bewildered by the lack of corroborating historical data.
|
| My own grandparents grew up in fairly modest rural settings,
| where burning wood was literally the only way not to freeze (I am
| talking about the 1930s here). At least one of their native
| villages was located in a tight valley where smoke tends to stay.
|
| But lung disease wasn't that much of a problem among them and
| their neighbors. People typically died of heart attacks, strokes
| etc., or lived to be fairly old. (Two of my four grandparents
| made it to 90.)
|
| I would expect a much more prominent data peak there. With other
| toxic substances, we often have it. With asbestos, even ancient
| Romans knew that slaves who mined asbestos died early of some
| weird lung disease etc.; the ancients lacked equipment, but were
| often good observers anyway.
| sneak wrote:
| Half the comments here are just providing an implementation of
| the fizzbuzz instead of addressing the article's point.
|
| https://www.samharris.org/blog/the-fireplace-delusion
|
| > _Once they have exited your chimney, the toxic gases (e.g.
| benzene) and particles that make up smoke freely pass back into
| your home and into the homes of others. (Research shows that
| nearly 70 percent of chimney smoke reenters nearby buildings.)
| Children who live in homes with active fireplaces or woodstoves,
| or in areas where wood burning is common, suffer a higher
| incidence of asthma, cough, bronchitis, nocturnal awakening, and
| compromised lung function. Among adults, wood burning is
| associated with more-frequent emergency room visits and hospital
| admissions for respiratory illness, along with increased
| mortality from heart attacks. The inhalation of wood smoke, even
| at relatively low levels, alters pulmonary immune function,
| leading to a greater susceptibility to colds, flus, and other
| respiratory infections. All these effects are borne
| disproportionately by children and the elderly._
| gardenhedge wrote:
| Link to the fizzbuzz implementation answers?
| echelon wrote:
| It's one of the most dismissive assertions I've seen on HN to
| date. The comment would have been much better without it, or
| simply rephrased as "To the point: ..."
| tempaccount420 wrote:
| It's pretty funny and reflects the unfortunate state of
| culture at the current point in time.
| [deleted]
| formerly_proven wrote:
| Scientifically this has been proven quite well, and people who
| aren't dumb notice as much - posh-er neighborhoods have
| _terrible_ air quality in fall /winter evenings because they
| all fire up their cozy fireplaces. If you can smell it on the
| street... well, that's ground level. Open windows and
| ventilation inlets are higher up and more affected.
|
| The thing is more that people don't want to hear it, like at
| all. These fireplaces are a big status symbol _and_ considered
| totally green and environment-friendly because it 's wood,
| right, so it's renewable, so has to be good. That they have no
| filters and terrible firing, resulting in exhaust that would
| make an 80s diesel tractor blush in shame, nobody cares. It's
| natural, so it's eco, so it's green, so it's good and it's
| cozy. _So fuck off._
| ethanbond wrote:
| FWIW I think the eco intuition is not very _durable_. I can't
| imagine people holding onto that when confronted, rather it's
| just something people don't consider without it being brought
| up.
|
| But the coziness, positive emotional affiliation is
| definitely hard to overcome. Especially since it's pretty
| much the smell and sound of bad burning itself that is so
| desirable.
| sneak wrote:
| > _I can't imagine people holding onto that when
| confronted_
|
| Try it sometime and be surprised! People round up a bunch
| of common retorts: the smoke goes up, it smells good, it's
| an old tradition, thousands of years, etc.
|
| People think that smoke isn't that bad for you if it
| doesn't make you cough, because it doesn't feel bad in the
| lungs.
|
| The fireplace delusion taught me a lot about myself and my
| own mind, and humans in general. We fucking LOVE to fool
| ourselves into rationalizing our own preferences.
| ethanbond wrote:
| No I am agreeing with you. I'm saying that the issue is
| not that they refuse to believe it's bad when explained,
| it's that even when they're convinced it's bad, they "net
| out" to keeping them due to all the positive affiliations
| _despite_ believing the harms.
| cableshaft wrote:
| > The inhalation of wood smoke, even at relatively low levels,
| alters pulmonary immune function, leading to a greater
| susceptibility to colds, flus, and other respiratory
| infections.
|
| Well that put a damper on my desire to attend a bonfire later
| this month.
| grecy wrote:
| > _Once they have exited your chimney, the toxic gases (e.g.
| benzene) and particles that make up smoke_
|
| Keep in mind that modern wood stoves have catalytic combustors
| that burn the wood, then the smoke, then usually the smoke
| again.
|
| They extract vastly more heat from the wood, and they emit
| vastly less toxic gasses out the stovepipe.
|
| Also note they are legally required in many, many places now.
|
| (Older stoves and fireplaces are grandfathered in, but you
| can't install a new "old" stove in many towns around the world)
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Heating with wood is also carbon-neutral.
| sneak wrote:
| Only if you replant the trees.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| This may come as a shock to you but trees do, in fact,
| replant themselves just fine without human intervention.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| Ya, the realistic alternative to carbon-neutral wood
| burning is carbon-intensive natural gas burning... How is
| that better?
| KeplerBoy wrote:
| Have you not heard of heat-pumps? I know they won't work
| according to old wive tales, but they actually do.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| I'm not arguing that they don't work, but the "realistic"
| alternative is that people will still mostly use natural
| gas if they end up stopping wood-burning. Heat Pumps are
| also still using a mostly-fossil-fuel grid at times where
| there's the least solar and the grid is most carbon-
| intensive. Thus, wood burning is still the only carbon-
| neutral option. I'd still rather see heat pumps on a
| fully renewable grid, but we should have less carbon
| emissions getting there.
| dathinab wrote:
| yes I'm mainly complaining about grandfathered in stoves, or
| such which are incorrectly installed maintained
| paulcole wrote:
| > Half the comments here are just providing an implementation
| of the fizzbuzz instead of addressing the article's point.
|
| Are you saying this as an indictment of the commenters or in
| praise of the progress we've made here at HN?
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| People struggle to change their behavior when confronted with
| data suggesting something they love is measurably worse for
| them
|
| In my experience, we decide to just ignore the information and
| find other reasons to give higher weight to benefits, in order
| to resolve the cognitive dissonance without requiring a change
| of behavior
|
| Add up enough of these cognitive dissonances and you find
| yourself living in a fantasy land where sugar is "fun!" and
| burning wood indoors is "cozy."
| dathinab wrote:
| > and into the homes of others.
|
| I really wish indoor wood burning, especially if not used for
| heating but luxury, would be banned at least in cities
|
| like wtf. is it legal to harass your neighbors with smell and
| toxic fumes every day just because you want to feel a bit comfy
| (to clarify: I mean comfy by having a fancy looking fire place
| you use additional to your normal heating system because you
| like how it looks)
|
| sure there are countries and areas in countries where for
| various sociology economical reasons banning it isn't
| acceptable at all and should not be done
|
| but a ~4 million city where one of the _most costly ways to
| heat_ is by burning wood logs it's a bit of a different story
| ;)
|
| and I know some parts of the city are poor and use very old
| ovens, but funnily they have less of an smell issue (I can't
| judge the toxicity) because they tend to burn preprocessed
| pellets for heating instead of not necessary well suited or
| fully dry wood for the looks
| chongli wrote:
| _I really wish indoor wood burning, especially if not used
| for heating but luxury, would be banned at least in cities_
|
| It doesn't need to be banned, it just needs stringent
| regulations to limit the particulate emissions. You can buy
| wood stoves today that emit less than half a gram per hour
| (0.5g/hr) of PM2.5 particulates. These modern wood stoves are
| also very efficient and beautiful to look at, so they provide
| a bit of luxury to go with their heating performance.
| brnt wrote:
| The problem with filters is they have a lower limit. PM2.5
| cuts out much of the smell, but none of the carcinogenicity
| (PM0.1 or so). The only filter that really works is a
| sealed cap. Burning biomatter is just not worth the health
| impact or the cost and effort to mitigate. It's like
| capturing CO2: a stupid idea.
| philips wrote:
| The testing of many wood stoves was called into question a
| few years ago. https://energynews.us/2021/03/18/report-
| finds-systemic-failu...
| dathinab wrote:
| > very old ovens
|
| it's kinda fascinating, some of this ovens are older then 70
| years, some where build in when this houses where build ~120
| years ago (but update)
|
| they also are all health hazards as in you manually have to
| control the exhausts when starting them and if you mess that
| up (e.g. fall asleep) CO will leak into you apartment and
| might silently kill you ....
| antisthenes wrote:
| While we're doing that, can we please also ban 2-stroke
| engines used for landscaping.
|
| The gasoline fumes mixed with small particles that get kicked
| up are absolutely noxious and can't possibly be good for you.
|
| This is especially egregious in dense suburban areas, where
| there's landscaping going on _every_ single day of the
| growing season.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| > While we're doing that, can we please also ban 2-stroke
| engines used for landscaping.
|
| Why only for landscaping? These fucks need to be banned,
| period. It was a huge mistake to ban them in vehicles while
| grandfathering all the old crap in. Unfortunately mechanics
| keep decade-old two-stroke junk alive, and spare parts
| aren't even banned.
| toomim wrote:
| [flagged]
| 3-cheese-sundae wrote:
| How exactly would you propose spare parts get banned?
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Spare parts are manufactured and supplied into channels.
|
| If you ban that, inventory eventually depletes, and
| people shift to alternatives.
|
| Similar to freon.
|
| I would maintain a carve-out for chainsaws. Low use,
| specialty requirements, and electric alternatives can't
| replicate.
| mcpackieh wrote:
| > _Spare parts are manufactured and supplied into
| channels. If you ban that [...]_
|
| Easier said than done. You'd need to impose BATFE-style
| regulations and measures. You're talking about arresting
| people for selling partially manufactured parts, parts
| which they claim are actually for other things, plans for
| parts paired with uncut sheet metal, etc. Is a clutch
| illegal to manufacture if it happens to fit on some model
| of two-stroke motor, even though it could also be used
| for other things? Have fun getting tangled up in these
| weeds. And the only way you'd stand a chance of enforcing
| this is by threatening people with many years in prison
| for what are non-violent crimes.
|
| People tolerate this sort of thing in the case of the
| BATFE because nobody really _needs_ a machine gun, very
| few people have one in the first place, there 's little
| parts commonality with other machines and because machine
| guns kill people in very visceral and obvious ways. But
| with two-stroke motors you have a whole ton of people who
| use these machines to save on huge amounts of labor
| (you're fucking with the way they put food on their table
| and pay rent, not just their fun at a gun range) and the
| alternatives are subpar. You exempt chainsaws from this,
| but that merely reflects what _you_ are personally
| familiar with and consider reasonable. And _even if_ the
| alternatives weren 't subpar, you'd still be asking
| people to purchase new expensive machines instead of
| performing cheap repairs on machines they already own.
| Point is, the incentive and willingness to skirt two-
| stroke spare part bans would be much higher than with
| machine guns. Your bans would fail without extremely
| draconian enforcement.
| Groxx wrote:
| If you're aiming for perfection, sure.
|
| Two stroke engine parts don't have a massive legally
| protected cult following like guns, nor are they high-
| cost many-times-repeated consumables like drugs. They're
| closer to antiques - some will collect them, most won't
| bother if they're not available.
|
| Ban it and you'll stop major places from selling it, and
| minor places from widely advertising they have it. You
| won't stop anyone dead-set on continuing to do so, but
| you will stop most people because the cost will be higher
| and it'll be much harder to find.
| mcpackieh wrote:
| If you're not shooting for perfectionism and won't bother
| to enforce a spar parts ban, then why propose a spare
| parts ban in the first place? Just ban the
| production/sale of new two-stroke machines, not the spare
| parts. As old machines wear the cost and effort of
| keeping them in service will eventually exceed the
| activation energy for buying a new machine. An unenforced
| ban of spare parts would accomplish nothing productive;
| it would waste your political capital and train a new
| group of people to have contemptuous disregard for laws.
|
| With respect to the antique analogy, you have it
| completely backwards. Antiques are things which have
| outlasted their practical usefulness but are kept around
| anyway because people have some nostalgic or aesthetic
| affinity for them. Machine guns fall into this category;
| they are essentially fetishes (in the traditional
| nonsexual sense of the word). Virtually nobody is earning
| their living with machine guns. Two stroke motors on the
| other hand are in active use by thousands if not millions
| of people to earn a living. If they were in fact
| antiques, then they wouldn't be a problem in the first
| place because antiques aren't put to use. If you banned
| new production of two-stroke machines, the ones that
| already exist would gradually become antiques despite the
| existence of legal spare parts, and eventually the only
| people keeping them in running order would be the antique
| geeks who own it because they like it, not because they
| earn a living with it. The people who are actively
| earning a living with two stroke motors today are the
| people you [should] have a gripe with, the lawn care guys
| who run two-stroke leaf blowers in your neighborhood
| aren't antique collectors doing it for fun, they're guys
| trying to feed their children.
| [deleted]
| iancmceachern wrote:
| California just did this
| imoverclocked wrote:
| Yeah, but my Stihl MS880 is still legal here in
| California... and likely will be for some time. Good luck
| getting a usable, heavy-duty chainsaw to work on any tech
| besides a two-stroke motor of some kind.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| What's the barrier to making a li-ion powered electric
| and "usable heavy-duty chainsaw"?
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Are you using heavy-duty chainsaw for urban landscaping?
| wannacboatmovie wrote:
| Meanwhile Seattle is under a perpetual cloud of choking smoke
| for like 2 months out of every year because WA and Canada are
| incompetent when it comes to forest management, and the best
| people can do to pretend to care is tell you to rubber band a
| furnace filter to a box fan and wear N95 masks to work.
|
| Banning wood stoves is like banning plastic bags. It's a
| superficial, empty gesture that is a drop in the bucket that
| makes no meaningful impact.
|
| I'll continue to heat my cabin with wood, thank you.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| > like wtf. is it legal to harass your neighbors with smell
| and toxic fumes every day
|
| You say harass, I say enhance. I love when I can smell a
| neighbor burning wood, it's one of the best things in the
| world. And therein lies the reason why your wish isn't going
| to come to pass any time soon: we don't all agree that the
| thing you want to ban is bad.
| throwbadubadu wrote:
| Strange, I just hate it.. I'm fine with loud parties, your
| loud stupid music, don't care how you run your garden, but
| nothing is more hatable than someone harassing me with
| smoke or other headache creating smells, and going for my
| health. I go into kind of half nature, to enjoy the fresh
| air, and then there is someone making a fire out of some
| mix of pure laziness, ignorance, unnecessity and pyromania,
| despite it being also illegal here.
|
| I mean a good campfire is hot, doesn't produce much smoke,
| goes quick up and high, usually not that smelly, ok who
| needs it.. (though we even these are quite toxic, so please
| a reasonable romantic evening campfire, and not a 5 hour
| bonfire on a hot and sunny day?) But unfortunately it is
| always not just that, but I need to smell a lot of
| carcinogenic smoke, green waste smell, or even worse
| plastic or other garbage smell, my cloyhes stink, my
| furniture stinks.. and we are also just past the time to
| just burn stuff.
|
| (Noone here does this out of poorness bte.)
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I burn all my yard waste as my locality has regulated all
| other means of disposal to the point of it being time-
| and cost-prohibitive.
|
| I pile it up and have a bonfire a few times a year.
| jemmyw wrote:
| They've regulated chipping mulching and composting?
| SoftTalker wrote:
| No, but I don't own a wood chipper, and renting one is
| costly and time-consuming.
| yread wrote:
| wtf, where do you live so I can avoid it?
| dathinab wrote:
| If some people get coughing fits from it it really stops
| mattering weather you like it or not.
| hollerith wrote:
| The PM2.5 not only gets in your lungs, it enters your
| bloodstream and gets everywhere including your brain. Peter
| Attia MD says there is no doubt it will shorten lifespan
| and healthspan.
|
| >your wish isn't going to come to pass any time soon
|
| It is coming to pass: for example, in the Bay Area,
| woodstoves and fireplaces have been banned in new
| construction since 2005.
| ipaddr wrote:
| If Peter Attia says it, it must be true.
| philjohn wrote:
| Big disagree there - it exacerbates Asthma in sufferers,
| that alone makes it bad.
| kiliantics wrote:
| > like wtf. is it legal to harass your neighbors with smell
| and toxic fumes every day just because you want to feel a bit
| comfy
|
| Same can be said for car use. Majority of trips are a few
| miles and could be done by bike or replaced with transit.
| paganel wrote:
| Only if you live in urban areas where you don't have to
| wait longer than 15 minutes for the bus to come, and, most
| importantly, where it is safe (especially for women) to
| take said bus late in the evening/at night. I hope that
| that recent and horrific stabbing in NYC made many people
| aware of the security aspect.
| dathinab wrote:
| so if you life in any arbitrary urban area in most of the
| EU
|
| because then you often don't even need to take the bus
| due to places you need to go to (e.g. super market) and
| places you come from (e.g. home) being much more
| intermixed/closer to each other
|
| e.g. for me places to buy food, medicine, a doctor,
| dentist, fast food, train, bus, package station, kiosk,
| bakery, restaurant, cafe, a park like thing all in ~8min
| walking distance and I'm somewhat at the outer are of the
| city
|
| still if you have disabilities and can't properly walk
| 8min you still need a car
| paganel wrote:
| I'm saying that, as a man, if you have to wait for your
| SO at the bus/train station late in the evening when she
| comes back from work then maybe public transport is not
| for everyone, in this case for almost 50% of the
| population (i.e. women). Been there, done that.
|
| If you live in an European big city where this problem
| doesn't exist, where women have no problem and especially
| no fear to use public transport late in the evening all
| by themselves, then consider yourself (and your SO)
| lucky.
| eternityforest wrote:
| If we care about the climate and want to spend money on it,
| subsidizing cleaner tech for those countries that need it
| seems like a great way to start, because even if you don't
| believe in climate change you're still preventing poverty and
| unhealthy air for people.
|
| I don't think it should be banned entirely though, that seems
| a bit extreme and likely to stir up controversy, even though
| it sure would be nice to have less smoke.
|
| I don't quite get the appeal of indoor fires, most houses are
| so warm all winter I wouldn't want any more heat, but outdoor
| bonfires are a nice tradition, as long as they're not
| happening enough to kill people with fumes.
| j45 wrote:
| COPD from fire is a real thing.
|
| I recall seeing some studies about indoor natural gas stoves
| not being the greatest either.
| adolph wrote:
| samharris.org: _an example of secular intransigence_
|
| "And I say this to Kai "Look: We'll shape the handle By
| checking the handle Of the axe we cut with--" And he sees."
|
| https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57150/axe-handles
| robg wrote:
| It's amazing to me that active air exchanges for filtering and
| even humidity are not well optimized as part of modern housing
| HVAC. Is it costs or simply system integrations?
|
| For instance, another big indoor pollutant is cooking fumes, from
| both the heat source and to cook, carmelize, burn, etc - the food
| and vapors of changing temperatures. The range hood required by
| fire codes to stove sizes is not turning on automatically with
| pollutant detection.
| zapdrive wrote:
| [flagged]
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Have they examined if it is the wood itself; or the (possible -
| no idea if true) accumulations of microplastics and other
| chemicals into the wood?
|
| I would not be terribly shocked if we found out that wood is more
| dangerous to burn today than it used to be.
|
| Edit: For the downvoters who think it's unlikely, consider that
| microplastic and PFAS in rainwater has passed safe levels. What
| do trees grow from?
|
| https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a40859859/rainwater...
| zdragnar wrote:
| Wood is already known to be cancer causing (via inhaled
| sawdust). Smoke is not going to be any better, and the quantity
| of microplastics trees available won't really move the needle
| on that.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Can you give me some studies on that, assuming that the
| sawdust is from straight wood and not any form of wood beam
| which contains glues and treatments?
| mrangle wrote:
| Look up any of the mountain of studies that connects air
| particulate, in general, to cancer.
|
| If you want to argue variables for air particulate's
| relationship to lung cancer, then more power to you.
| zdragnar wrote:
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8266936/
|
| Money quote from the abstract:
|
| "The strongest association of exposure to wood dust and
| development of nasal cancer is observed in those
| occupations where workers are exposed to hard wood dust and
| chemical additives are not used."
|
| Note that the strongest association is when chemicals are
| NOT used - I suspect this might be more due to how people
| work the wood (less likely to sand particles board, more
| likely to wear protective gear) than the nature of the
| chemicals themselves.
|
| It does go on to say that various respiratory cancers are
| from both untreated and treated wood sawdust, but wood
| alone is well known to cause cancer.
| zorrotorro wrote:
| Legit interesting question.
| bbor wrote:
| Definitely possible IMO! Seems like it would be surprising tho
| - consider the disparities in volume. I think the boring answer
| is that breathing smoke is dangerous, despite the occult and
| ambience benefits of a hearth ;( it forms
| minute bits of plastic that are tinier than 5 millimeters long.
| Their size means they end up everywhere, even in our blood,
| where they range in size between 700 nanometers and 5,000
| nanometers.
| dathinab wrote:
| the ways you can (short term) kill yourself by doing indoor wood
| (or pallet) burning wrong are quite many and even in countries
| which relative strict regulations when it comes to chimes and
| similar deaths by it aren't that rare
|
| if something can kill you just because you used it somewhat wrong
| it it's somewhat broken in some aspect of ventilation you
| probably should assume that even a more correct long term usage
| might have a good chance to have serve long term negative health
| effects
| hmottestad wrote:
| In Norway it's very normal to have a stove and burn wood pretty
| much every day in the winter season. Open fireplaces are rather
| uncommon though, essentially because they produce a lot of smoke
| and very little heat.
|
| I hope they do a follow up study that separates fireplace and
| stove.
| sneak wrote:
| Woodsmoke re-enters buildings within a 500-1000 meter radius of
| the fire.
|
| Burning wood is a very bad idea. It smells nice and we like it,
| but it is positively terrible for our health and should not be
| done.
|
| Traditions, however, are strong.
| amdolan wrote:
| Properly operating a wood burning stove will release very
| little smoke. This is where the center stone is in the range
| of approx 300-600F (100-300C). The chimney will produce clear
| heat and there is no detectable smell when standing outside.
| Much different result than a fireplace.
|
| It's referred to as double combustion, or secondary
| combustion.
| foobiekr wrote:
| You often will not smell small particulate. In addition the
| problem here is that the stove has to be operated correctly
| and in good condition which, unfortunately, is not
| something you can rely on.
| 7952 wrote:
| Is there any reason to believe that they are properly
| operated?
| ksimukka wrote:
| You might be interested in: https://www.fhi.no/en/cl/air-
| pollution/wood-burning/
|
| I don't remember the exact details, but the Oslo municipality
| has a program that will provide home owners a grant to replace
| their inefficient wood stoves.
|
| Statistics Norway might have some interesting data on how many
| households burn wood.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Interesting, women lung cancer rate in Norway seems to be
| slightly higher than most of the Europe bu significantly lower
| in male population: https://canceratlas.cancer.org/the-
| burden/lung-cancer/
| hmottestad wrote:
| That is very interesting. Seems to be the case for all the
| nordic countries. Sweden stands out a bit more than Norway
| though, they actually have a higher lung cancer rate for
| women than for men.
| hirundo wrote:
| I run a wood stove all winter long and some years never turn on
| the central heat. I wonder how much of the extra risk is offset
| by * lower fire risk from burning the fuel
| surrounding my house for the last few years. * more
| exercise from cutting, splitting and hauling wood * an air
| purifier running next to the wood stove all winter * about
| ~$1,200 per year saved on fuel * more open windows during
| the day during the winter due to cheaper fuel costs.
|
| That might not fully compensate for the extra lung cancer risk
| but it might be significant.
|
| Also since heat is cheaper this way, I heat my house more and am
| more comfortable all winter. This doesn't seem like it would
| offset the health risks, but it is a hedonic compensation.
| natdempk wrote:
| You could do (most of) the good things from the above and not
| have the wood burning stove. I think this is kind of a false
| dilemma. :)
| belval wrote:
| [flagged]
| __alexs wrote:
| Do you often find a burning desire to just make shit up?
| sokoloff wrote:
| It's cancerous.
| 9991 wrote:
| Good lord, dude, the study is right there.
| mtVessel wrote:
| This was a study of US residents.
| jsight wrote:
| This study focuses on the US.
| [deleted]
| s3krit wrote:
| In the UK recently, there has been a designation of 'smoke-free'
| areas, specifically as a result of research done on the harm to
| health caused by PM2.5 particulates. It's become quite popular
| for middle-class homes to fit multifuel stoves (i.e., wood, coal,
| whatever) in order to heat the main room of their house. Largely
| because they look nice but there is some argument to be made that
| with the cost of living increasing, especially around energy,
| that it is somewhat economical to do so - particularly if you
| have access to free/foraged wood. The idea is you can still use
| these stoves so long as the fuel you are burning is considered
| 'smokeless', which in reality isn't actually smokeless but refers
| to wood that has a moisture content between 15-20%, as well as a
| number of commercially-available fuels you can buy from large
| hardware stores like B&Q and some supermarkets.
|
| Another development that personally affects me is that local
| councils are now able to start enforcing this 'smoke-free' thing
| on owners of narrowboats[1]. For those that don't know, the UK
| has a 2000 mile network of inland canals on which thousands of us
| live, in canal barges of about 7ft beam. In the winter, a lot of
| these boats' primary method of heating our homes is using
| multifuel stoves. It's an itinerant lifestyle that can be hard at
| times but incredibly freeing and requires one to live somewhat
| more in tune with the seasons. A lot of boaters don't have a ton
| of money and _primarily_ fuel our stoves with foraged wood at
| varying levels of seasoning (the process of drying wood to reduce
| moisture content and make it burn better and cleaner). For
| instance, this year I got a knock on the roof of my boat by a
| tree surgeon, informing me we needed to move our boat as they had
| to chop down an ash tree that had succumbed to ash dieback [2]. I
| asked if I could take some of the wood and he said no problem,
| saves them a bit of work getting rid of it. And that 's now my
| wood for the winter. We are, of course, aware of the health
| hazards of groups of boats burning not the best wood, but a large
| percentage of live-aboard boaters really don't have any other
| option.
|
| Sorry, not particularly relevant to the article posted but I
| thought it worth mentioning that there are cases where not
| burning things to stay warm in winter is not an option for some
| groups of people.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrowboat
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hymenoscyphus_fraxineus
| trappist wrote:
| I'm not seeing any attempt here to control for obvious
| confounders such as the relationship between this exposure and
| the climate you live in.
|
| I think I'm also not a fan of the (editorialized) verb (implies
| causality) used in this headline, for a purely observational
| study.
| FreeFlyFreeFall wrote:
| "...confounders such as the relationship between this exposure
| and the climate you live in."
|
| I'm not sure what this is suggesting, and I'm curious.
| 2devnull wrote:
| So if I'm reading this right, for never smokers who lived in a
| house that used a woodstove between 1-29 days of the year have
| the same risk as smokers who used one everyday if the year?
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| If you mean the summary in the abstract, they report three
| hazard ratios:
|
| 1. Women reporting more than 30 days of fireplace use per year
| (smokers and nonsmokers both included) had 68% more lung cancer
| than women reporting that their home didn't contain a fireplace
| (again, smokers and nonsmokers both included).
|
| 2. Non-smoking women reporting more than 30 days of fireplace
| use per year had 99% more lung cancer than non-smoking women
| reporting that their home didn't contain a fireplace.
|
| 3. Non-smoking women reporting 1-29 days of fireplace use per
| year had 64% more lung cancer than non-smoking women reporting
| that their home didn't contain a fireplace.
|
| Not actually reported, but present by overwhelmingly strong
| implication:
|
| 1b. Women (without regard to ever-smoker status) reporting 1-29
| days of fireplace use per year had no significant increase in
| lung cancer compared to women reporting that they didn't even
| have a fireplace. (Or else the results summary would have noted
| that they did.)
|
| These are funny numbers with suspicious lacunae in the
| reporting of results. I'm not inclined to take them very
| seriously. At the same time, it is undoubtedly true that
| inhaling smoke is bad for you.
|
| The study terminology always treats wood-burning stoves and
| fireplaces as equivalent. I would estimate that of the fixtures
| in the USA that are either wood-burning stoves or fireplaces,
| approximately 100% are fireplaces. This makes the study
| worthless if you want to draw conclusions about stoves, but OK
| for fireplaces. On the other hand, it doesn't really matter
| that the study won't let you draw conclusions about stoves,
| because there would be no point in having such conclusions.
| elephanlemon wrote:
| I wonder what the risk level is for people that regularly sit
| around campfires.
| lacrimacida wrote:
| Yes, am wondering the same. Recently went camping and the
| fire was lit for effects as we cooked food on mini/portable
| stoves. It's horrible I'd say, the smoke is thick, gets into
| everything but all I got is go with the program, it keeps the
| mosquitoes away and it's charming. I wonder how long till
| this culture gets a reality check...
| 2devnull wrote:
| People like to "bbq." It's like cancer as a hobby.
| mcpackieh wrote:
| Does that seem unusual or alarming to you? Lots of fun and
| enjoyable things have tradeoffs that people willingly make.
| There' a balance to be struck between having fun in the
| moment and your long-term health, and most people tolerate
| a fair bit of risk in exchange for fun. Otherwise, nobody
| would drink alcohol, go skiing, etc.
| washadjeffmad wrote:
| People laugh at the light-proof HEPA cocoon I live in,
| but I refuse to accept the inevitability of my death at
| anything other than time's hands.
| 2devnull wrote:
| No it doesn't. I think my point was that people budget
| their carcinogenic exposure in non-optimal, hard to
| rationalize ways. Like living in places with terrible air
| quality (California) and then being concerned about gas
| stoves.
| vore wrote:
| It's way easier to change your gas stove than to move.
| [deleted]
| mrangle wrote:
| High. I never used to notice. But after paying more attention
| to air quality in my environment, I now notice when air
| quality is particularly bad when before I hadn't. Sitting
| around a campfire feels like at least pack of cigarettes was
| smoked.
| dimitrios1 wrote:
| This is why I bring a smokeless fire pit with me camping now.
| I swear it makes a difference, but could be placebo.
| treadmill wrote:
| Which one do you use?
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| 1-29 days is... vague. However, the study also does not seem to
| consider the much, much tighter particulate emission rules that
| new wood stoves and similar have had to follow. The EPA has
| tightened it every few years (I think the last one was 2015?)
|
| An old wood stove is almost nothing (and I literally mean
| almost nothing) to a modern wood stove in efficiency or air
| cleanliness. It would almost be like if you did a study about
| the toxicity of cars but used data from when we had leaded gas.
| There's still a toxicity there but your results are going to be
| a mess.
| fzeroracer wrote:
| It's still an important investigation because unfortunately
| things are never idiot proof. For example, my parents have a
| pellet stove and it was not uncommon for it to occasionally
| leak, followed by my parents putting in a shoddy self-made
| fix.
|
| These kind of studies could indicate some flaw in the way
| we're creating wood stoves, or some consumer-related failure
| that needs to be better worked around. Or it could be that
| consumers are just using older wood stoves. But you gotta
| start with a baseline.
| happytiger wrote:
| It's a study in correlation, presuming causation.
|
| Research on whether dual burning stoves that reprocess their
| own exhaust and don't leak like old ones (the ones you're
| referring to) or other systems could be done, but this is
| baseline research.
|
| You can use the same logic to attack the choice of fuels, or
| species of wood, or types of seals and whether air is taken
| from the inside or the outside of the structure, and all of
| it would also be as valid as your argument. You could also
| try to invalidate this for only focusing on women. But, while
| valid arguments (as is yours), it sidesteps the purpose of
| the study.
|
| It's simply not the hypothesis of this particular study,
| which was simply establish a correlation between the presence
| & use of wood burning fuel in fire burning devices and lung
| cancer incidence in women.
|
| Don't throw out the bathwater with the babe.
| this_steve_j wrote:
| I'm really grateful to the HN community for bringing quality
| research (like this study and others) to my attention.
|
| If there are old habits and behaviors, like indoor fires in this
| case, that can be easily avoided (by me) in exchange for a better
| chance at avoiding lung cancer, I'm surely glad to have that
| knowledge so I can avoid unwitting cozying up to a serious
| ailment later in life.
|
| There is so much anecdotal evidence around old habits but a high
| powered study, followed by more like it, can usually be relied
| upon.
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