NHS To ban anaesthetic gas that will have no effect on the climate

Written by Andy Rowlands on October 3, 2023. Posted in Current News

A couple days ago, the media was reporting the NHS is to ban the use of a ‘potent greenhouse gas’ used in anasthetics. However, as so often happens now, you are only being told half the story

I picked up on a Dail Mail article, which reads:

The NHS will ban an anaesthetic gas by early next year in an attempt to meet net zero targets – despite a top scientist claiming the move is ‘not supported by climate science’.

Some anaesthetists believe the planned ban will unnecessarily restrict what can be given to patients undergoing surgery.

According to NHS England desflurane has a global warming potential 2,500 times greater than carbon dioxide.

The health service has said the ban will help to reduce ‘harmful emissions’ and there are ‘safe and clinically effective alternatives’ already in use.

Safe and effective, where have we heard that before?

At a major conference of anaesthetists, Professor Dame Julia Slingo argued the ‘decommissioning’ of desflurane should be reversed because it’s use should be based on what’s best for the patient.

During her keynote speech at the Association of Anaesthetists annual conference, Prof Dame Slingo said: ‘Anaesthetic gases have a vanishing[ly] small effect … lifetimes are too short and concentrations too low. They have no climate impact.’

Comments by Prof Dame Slingo – the Met Office‘s former chief scientist who led a team of more than 500 scientists – were welcomed by a series of anaesthetists working in the NHS who have concerns the drug will only be available in ‘exceptional clinical circumstances’.

Dr Nick Fletcher, a consultant anaesthetist in London, told The Telegraph that this particular anaesthetic is useful for cases such as ‘super-obese patients’.

He added the ban would mean removing a useful agent without a wider environmental benefit.

An NHS spokesman said the decision had ‘strong clinical support’ including from the Royal College of Anaesthetists.

The Association of Anaesthetists formally backed the ban earlier this year.

‘We are working with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and professional bodies to ensure this is implemented safely,’ the spokesman added.

More than 40 trusts in England have already stopped using it.

I had not heard of desflurane, so I looked it up. Turns out it is one of the many trace gasses in our atmosphere. It’s concentration is 0.0000003 percent, or 0.3 parts per trillion.

The claim is desflurane is 2500 times as potent a ‘greenhouse gas’ than carbon dioxide, but notice the use of the word ‘potential‘.

PSI’s position is that there is but one ‘greenhouse gas’; water vapour, and even if desflurane was 2500 times as potent as CO2, there is 100,000 times less of it in the atmosphere than CO2, so any ‘potential’ warming it might have is entirely swamped by the natural flux of gases.

The article neglected to mention that.

This is nothing more than totally pointless virtue-signalling.

There seems to be a desire to severely reduce or ban just about everything that has improved the human condition, and introduce things that will make us worse off in every way.

See more here dailymail.co.uk

Bold emphasis added

About the author: Andy Rowlands is a university graduate in space science and British Principia Scientific International researcher, writer and editor who co-edited the new climate science book, ‘The Sky Dragon Slayers: Victory Lap‘

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