Switching asthma inhalers could reduce carbon emissions, says study
Concerns over health care’s carbon footprint typically revolve around issues like overly-air-conditioned hospitals and single-use medical supply waste. But researchers like Stanford University’s Jyothi Tirumalasetty think that asthma inhalers are also a good place to start when it comes to reducing emissions.
Metered-dose inhalers, the most common type used to treat asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), use a propellant gas to aerosolize medications, which patients then breathe in. Those propellant gasses are usually one of two different hydrofluorocarbons — which are many times better at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, and thus disproportionately contribute to climate change.
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