Anesthesia the next target in climate battle: Docs suggest reducing anesthesia: Would you suffer to combat climate change?
NY Post: Experts are now recommending that doctors reduce their use of certain kinds of anesthesia in order to combat the effects of climate change. Dr. Mohamed Fayed, a senior anesthetist at Detroit’s Henry Ford Health, made the suggestion during the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ annual conference last Friday in Orlando, Florida. “Global warming is affecting our daily life more and more, and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions has become crucial,” he said. Dr. Fayed added, “No matter how small each effect is, it will add up. As anesthesiologists, we can contribute significantly to this cause by making little changes in our daily practice — such as lowering the flow of anesthetic gas — without affecting patient care.”
Research notes that inhaled anesthesia accounts for up to 0.1% of the world’s carbon emissions, which are regarded as the primary driver of global climate change. An hour of surgery using an inhaled anesthetic is equivalent to driving as many as 470 miles, according to a 2010 study.
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Flashback 2020 Study in American Cancer Society Journal in 2020 Fretted over ‘carbon footprint of cancer care’ – ACS Journal: “Climate change and cancer” – Excerpt: “To date, no studies have estimated the carbon footprint of cancer care…The energy expenditure associated with operating cancer treatment facilities and medical devices, as well as the manufacturing, packaging, and shipment of devices and pharmaceuticals, contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions in cancer care…Some cancer treatment facilities have begun to consider their own carbon footprint and started a process to achieve carbon neutrality.”
Climate Depot’s Morano: “Here is a question for the American Cancer Society: If you need cancer treatment, would you go to a cancer treatment center that was worried about its carbon footprint? Or one that was worried about delivering the best possible modern care possible?”
By: Marc Morano
https://nypost.com/2023/01/30/doctors-recommend-cutting-anesthesia-to-combat-climate-change/
Docs suggest reducing anesthesia: Would you suffer to combat climate change?
By Adriana Diaz
Experts are now recommending that doctors reduce their use of certain kinds of anesthesia in order to combat the effects of climate change.
Dr. Mohamed Fayed, a senior anesthetist at Detroit’s Henry Ford Health, made the suggestion during the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ annual conference last Friday in Orlando, Florida. (LINK)
“Global warming is affecting our daily life more and more, and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions has become crucial,” he said.
Dr. Fayed added, “No matter how small each effect is, it will add up. As anesthesiologists, we can contribute significantly to this cause by making little changes in our daily practice — such as lowering the flow of anesthetic gas — without affecting patient care.”
Research notes that inhaled anesthesia accounts for up to 0.1% of the world’s carbon emissions, which are regarded as the primary driver of global climate change.
An hour of surgery using an inhaled anesthetic is equivalent to driving as many as 470 miles, according to a 2010 study.
Most general anesthesia procedures require a high fresh gas flow at the start and end of a procedure to quickly achieve the desired effect. But, according to Fayed, it is safe and effective to lower the flow at other times.
Anesthesia must be expertly administered: Too much of a drug can result in brain damage, coma or even death. But too little can mean a patient waking up during the procedure and experiencing intense pain, not to mention psychological trauma.
For their study, researchers from Henry Ford Health dialed down gas flow in an effort to reduce anesthesia use to under 3 liters every minute per surgery whenever possible.
This effort focused on the use of inhaled anesthetics only and produced a substantial decrease in use of the drugs, sometimes by as much as half.
Medical experts at Henry Ford Health also removed the drug desflurane from all operating rooms, noting that it produces the most significant carbon-dioxide emissions.
Data was gathered from 13,000 patients who underwent anesthesia from March 2021 to July 2021. Prior to the intervention, 65% of cases were limited to the 3 L/m threshold. By the end, 93% of cases achieved that.
“For a long time, there was a notion that the greenhouse effect caused in health care settings was an inevitable and unavoidable cost of providing patient care,” said Dr. Fayed.
“But we have learned that reducing anesthetic gas flow is one of the many ways health care can lessen its contribution to the global warming crisis, along with reducing waste, turning off lights and equipment when not in use and challenging practice habits, as long as they don’t compromise patient care.”
The researchers now are aiming to reduce the level of fresh gas flow to less than 2 L/m throughout the system.
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Study in American Cancer Society Journal in 2020 Fretted over ‘carbon footprint of cancer care’ – From 2020: ACS Journal: “Climate change and cancer” – Excerpt: “To date, no studies have estimated the carbon footprint of cancer care…The energy expenditure associated with operating cancer treatment facilities and medical devices, as well as the manufacturing, packaging, and shipment of devices and pharmaceuticals, contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions in cancer care…Some cancer treatment facilities have begun to consider their own carbon footprint and started a process to achieve carbon neutrality. However, the proportion of health care institutions reporting environmental sustainability activities lags behind other economic sectors”
Climate Depot’s Morano: “Here is a question for the American Cancer Society: If you need cancer treatment, would you go to a cancer treatment center that was worried about its carbon footprint? Or one that was worried about delivering the best possible modern care possible?”
How many can they come up with? Surgery Causes Global Warming?! Study Shows ‘Anesthesia Agent Is Greatest Potential Contributor to Global Warming’– Claim: ‘Anesthetics used by a busy hospital contribute as much to global warming as the emissions from hundreds of cars per year’-
Claim: Surgical General Anesthetic is Contributing to Climate Change– Switching from general to regional anaesthetics may help cut greenhouse emissions and ultimately help reduce global warming, a new study claims. While regional anaesthetics numb a certain part of the body, general anaesthetics make patients totally unconscious for what tend to be more serious procedures. But unlike regional anaesthetics, generals use volatile and environmentally-unfriendly halogenated agents, such as desflurane, or nitrous oxide. … ‘Green-gional’ anesthesia: the non-polluting benefits of regional anesthesia to decrease greenhouse gases and attenuate climate change
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I think the proponents of eliminating anesthesia should be given a shot of whiskey and a leather belt to bite on, then commence the surgery dedicktomy.
The insane are more rational than “experts.”
One crude and tasteless post deserves another:
The surgical procedure to remove the tonsils is called:
A tonsillectomy
The surgical procedure to remove the appendix is called:
An appendectomy
The surgical procedure to change a woman’s gender is called:
An addadicktome
Laughed out loud at that one – thanks Steve.
“…The surgical procedure to change a woman’s gender is called:
An addadicktome…”
And the inverse procedure is a cutitoffame
The term Ron was looking for is penidectomy.
I’m sure all physicians will be obliged to choose a whiskey and leather belt over anesthetic the next time any of them requires thoracic surgery.
No need such drastic measures: just a colonoscopy without sedation would do.
Whiskey requires fermentation which produces CO2. And since cows are bad for the environment too, no leather belt either.
Many of them could probably benefit from the Addadiktomy
The tributes to Rush Limbaugh just keep pouring in. Thanks. Ron
nah theyre already thinking with one
In a few old Westerns they gave them a bullet to bite on.
Perhaps they should develop a leather strap which would have built into a whole cartridge, not just the bullet, aimed at the back of mouth (or the anesthesiologist).
When the pain gets too great, just chomp down down a little harder
(If aimed at the anesthesiologist, he’d take a bit more care in making sure you are pain free!) 😎
Nice morbid image, but an unchambered cartridge would rupture sideways if set off.
grumblegrumbleFactsagaingrumblegrumble 😎
You can get your dedicktomy done by the famous Russian surgeon Dr. Ivana Kutczyakokov.
Sounds more Polish to me
“Dr. Fayed added, “No matter how small each effect is, it will add up. As anesthesiologists, we can contribute significantly to this cause by making little changes in our daily practice — such as…”
Such as… Dr. Fayed buying a car with half the engine capacity. Travelling to work on a motorcycle. Turning down the average temperature of his home by one or two degrees.
Somehow, I get the feeling Dr. Fayed isn’t going to do that.
I’m sure patients come first with Dr. Sayed. First in line to be required to make sacrifices he won’t.
Patients, you have been warned.
I suggest he gets paid half as much, therefore he won’t waste as much money on material things that enlarge his carbon footprint.
Good suggestion!
I think he should only travel by bicycle or walking. He should also shut off his heat and air conditioning to further cut down his carbon footprint. He can keep his running water minus the water heater as long as he uses his collected rainwater first.
What is not said is that man made CO2 has very little effect on the weather or climate and the piddling amount of change that his procedures produce is even less.
Sure. Let them lead by example.
Every profession has to get in on the climate thing. Shows your relevant and makes it easy to produce a publishable paper. Mention the evils of climate change and it should pass peer review.
I hope this is the real explanation for this paper getting published.
Yes, I agree with your hoping!
Either the explanation is right or the nazi mentality is rising and spreading.
Could be both, Joao
What a load of pig manure …. Is everyone with more than half a brain completely ignorant or incapable of doing some simple cross checking and simple maths?
These so called “doctors” – have they every calculated how much CO2 is emitted by breathing of all the talking monkeys on this planet? Hmmm, turns out each and every human existing and breathing emits lots of CO2, after all our bodies are in fact internal combustion engines….
We use hydrocarbons as fuel, add oxygen to slowly burn it, and emit water vapor and CO2 as exhaust products. To the tune of the equivalent of 2,000 – 5,000 miles a year of a modern automobile’s emissions!
So saving a pittance by reducing anesthesia is simply dumb virtue signaling with potentially harmful repercussions to patients waking up during surgery!
Idiots everywhere! And to be against CO2 is to be aligned against LIFE, for without at least 180 ppm of CO2 there would be no plant life and hence no animal life! Plants want to be at 1,000 ppm, and the biggest explosion of life occurred with CO2 levels 10-15x higher than now!
But the article points out that every little bit helps.
To stay in the order of magnitude, I would suggest that “doctors” who think like the author of the paper should reduce their own breathing instead of reducing the anesthesia to patients.
Right, but CO2 from breath was CO2 in the atmosphere only a few weeks (if plants) or months (if meat) ago, so there is no net CO2 added to atmosphere by the actions of the human cellular engines. From agricultural fertilizers made with fossil fuels, yes, but not from human metabolism by itself.
I’m surprised—well, not really—that a know-nothing comment like that got 24 upvotes.
“have they every calculated how much CO2 is emitted by breathing of all the talking monkeys on this planet?”
Be careful, or he may decide the best solution would be for the patients not to wake up after the surgery.
They could dial the gas way down, allow the patient to wake up (though they will of course remain paralysed and be unable to show their distress), then whack them with a massive dose of prozac or similar so they don’t remember it.
Greener planet. Treated patient. Everyone is happy.
Maybe no anesthetic and roofies afterwards?
Or one of ACME cartoon sledgehammers.
I’m sure they must be sold in stores.
Look for the aisle that says “As Seen On TV”.
We are told that general anesthetics are environmentally unfriendly agents, such as nitrous oxide.
What we are NEVER told is how much global warming nitrous oxide or methane are on track to cause. By 2100 it’s less than a tenth of a degree.
Besides that, the amount of N2O released via anesthesia is puny.
Here’s why this story will get buried quickly….
Story Tip
WSJ
What Doctors Are Learning About Marijuana and Surgery
People who use cannabis may need more anesthesia during procedures, but many remain wary of mentioning their habit
“Anesthesia must be expertly administered: Too much of a drug can result in brain damage, coma or even death.”
Too much of the fashionable messaging about GHGs and even highly trained anesthesiologists can simulate brain damage when talking about climate change.
Such as, “No matter how small each effect is, it will add up.” No. You will never, ever experience a difference in the temperature attributable to your new policies reducing the margins of effective pain management.
As long as the planet is flooded with liquified natural refrigerant, and the surface is spritzed with it from the heat-engine response of the atmosphere, any effect will vanish in the resulting circulations.
Watch from space to get the point.
https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES/fulldisk_band.php?sat=G16&band=16&length=12
Why do I find myself hoping that Gates, Gore, Oreskes, Mann, Kerry, Mann and Biden, to name but a few, all require major surgery in the near future?
(Mann x2 is not an error)
Next, patients will have to go back to a bottle of Red Eye and a bullet to bite on.
And where did all these Docs fly or drive in from to get the conference; and how did they get there ??
So WUWT finds and names one doctor who advocates cutting back anesthesia to decrease adding of GHGs to the atmosphere? Only one while there are about 600,000 active MDs in the US?
As for “Research notes that inhaled anesthesia accounts for up to 0.1% of the world’s carbon emissions”: This is so wrong that it is definitely cherrypicked, or as some WUWT authors have said before, “not even wrong”. If this claim was for equivalent of .1% of CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning or from human activity, then it would be worth factchecking.
There is nothing inaccurate about that statement. “Up to 0.1% of the world’s carbon emissions” includes everything below that level, including 0.0000%. Carbon emissions are not CO2 emissions either. You can bet it was carefully worded to be entirely accurate but entirely misleading.
Perhaps the other 599,999 active MDs should call out this nonsense, but they won’t, will they?
Very glad to read this Doctor’s comments – if I was a US resident I would now know not to go anywhere closer than Pluto to be treated by this world class dementador.
I would not go to an anesthesiologist who thinks “..Global warming is affecting our daily life more and more.”
You would hope he takes his current medical updates from sources better than John Kerry and late night comedians. (But with how low the Lancet has gone, he may have no choice.)
”’Experts’ are now recommending …” One CAGW lunatic doctor presents an anecdotal “study” and is transformed by “journalists” into “experts.”
0.1% of worldwide CO2e is from anesthesia? Someone is seriously math-challenged.
Next they will demand wooden scalpels. Leeches are all-natural, so how about new research by “experts” on the benefits of leech craft?
Actually, https://biology.anu.edu.au/research/research-stories/leeches-modern-medicine
Take a look at other of Adriana Diaz’s high quality, hard-hitting journalism:
https://nypost.com/author/adriana-diaz
Not strongly defending the “planet-saving” aspect here, as I agree probably minimal impact, but FWIW: (1) there are systems to check the level of anesthesia of a patient (such as neuromuscular transmission) during surgery; (2) only a very small % of inhaled sedation is actually absorbed – most is simply exhaled again, and can be recovered. Reducing emissions of GHG could then be seen as a secondary feature of systems that can recover the stuff. Saving waste/cost would be the primary driver, IMHO.
I would prefer to reduce Dr. Fayed’s flow of oxygen first.
Planned Patienthood? A bid to reduce excess carbon and budgetary pressures?
In a follow-up study, it was found that patients who died during surgery reduced their carbon dioxide emissions to zero. The road to Net Zero is obvious.
I was going to ask why he doesn’t just let the patients die and reduce their emissions to zero.
Don’t encourage them.
As a general rule, anesthesiologists should be using the minimum necessary dosage of all drugs anyway.
So this idiot proposes compromising his patients to “save the planet”. Sheesh!
anyone who suggests you do something for your “own good” is selling you something for his/her own power … eventually anyone who refuses to do what they want “for your own good” will be made to comply … and when that fails (it always does) they will simply “remove” you … at first into a prison camp and eventually 6 feet under …
Next obvious step: add a climate triage station to ER input stations. If the treatment has a high “climate impact” shunt them to palliative care. Unless of course one purchases carbon credits.
Wouldn’t one’s social credit score count too?
There is NO climate crisis developing!
Tropical/Hurricane Storms not increasing.
Tornadoes frequency in decline
Wildfires in decline
Drought/floods no significant trend.
Warming RATE in decline since the early 1990’s
Sea level increase is small.
Arctic sea ice still over 3 Wadhams at latest minimum in 2022 after it was supposed to be all gone as much as 12 years ago.
No Lower Tropospheric Hot Spot developing as shown here below and not seen since 2011 either.
Tropospheric Hot Spot Report I wrote 12 years ago in the old forum.
LINK
Here is the Closed Anti-Hockey Stick thread
LINK
People out there needs understand the reality of the world climate which is changing very little in many areas such as mine which is the same now as it was in 1964 when I moved there this according to the Koppen Classification index, mine is BSk
LINK
Enjoy!
Whatever happened to “First, Do no Harm”?
Someone’s been on the laughing gas