Steve Milloy
New research the Consumer Product Safety Commission wants to rely on to ban gas stoves is classic junk science.
This is research. Summary below.
Here’s a quick recap of some of the research’s fundamental flaws, in no particular order:
- It’s not actual research on children. It’s a meta-analysis of previously published (and omitted) studies — a look at other studies that aren’t convincing. The authors searched the literature on previous epidemiological studies of gas stoves and asthma in children, and then mixed those results together in an attempt to generate statistical significance. This is a bogus technique for a number of reasons including publication bias in ingredient studies – i.e. studies with unpublished results.
- The study results, including composition studies, are weak statistical associations – i.e. noise range correlations. The study results, which may include composition studies, are also not statistically significant.
- Asthma is an allergic disease. There are no allergens in natural gas. Therefore, the study has no biological plausibility. No one knows what causes asthma in children and so competing causes cannot be ruled out.
- The claim that gas stoves are responsible for 12% of asthma in children – an epidemiological concept known as “attribution risk” – is completely bogus because of epidemiological studies. can only be used to identify disease-related exposures. They cannot be used to determine disease risk because (1) the baseline data are not representative of the population; and (2) epidemiological studies themselves cannot be used to determine causality.
If not that means nothing to you. you need to read”Junk Science Judo: Defend yourself against health threats and scams.”
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