Greenhouse gas emissions have a new culprit: Asthma inhalers

Considerations over well being care’s carbon footprint usually revolve round points like overly-air-conditioned hospitals and single-use medical provide waste.  However researchers like Stanford College’s Jyothi Tirumalasetty assume that bronchial asthma inhalers are additionally a great place to begin in terms of decreasing emissions.

Metered-dose inhalers, the most typical sort used to deal with bronchial asthma or persistent obstructive pulmonary illness (COPD), use a propellant fuel to aerosolize drugs, which sufferers then breathe in. These propellant gasses are normally certainly one of two completely different hydrofluorocarbons — that are many instances higher at trapping warmth within the ambiance than carbon dioxide, and thus disproportionately contribute to local weather change.

Allergist Tirumalasetty, together with College of Michigan professor Shelie Miller and different co-authors, analyzed 2022 knowledge from Medicare and Medicaid to determine the typical greenhouse fuel emissions of those inhalers, and examine their prices to extra environmentally pleasant choices.