Partial Results of Stove Study Suggest Health Differences

Asthma patients in Ohio didn't just get new stoves—they got an accidental health experiment that, even in truncated form, delivered eye-opening results. The Washington Post's Jake Spring reports on an Environmental Protection Agency-funded study that set out to replace gas stoves with electric ones in 1,200 homes of people with asthma in the Cleveland and Akron areas. The $18 million grant, awarded in late 2024, was canceled in 2025 after the newly installed Trump administration moved to slash federal research spending and shuttered the EPA office that funded it. By then, only 85 participants had received new stoves. Researchers at Case Western Reserve University published their partial findings anyway in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology in Practice this month.

Even with the tiny sample, they recorded steep drops in kitchen nitrogen dioxide—about 70%—and big decreases in asthma attacks, ER visits, and missed work. Ash Sehgal, the lead scientist, said the symptom improvement rivaled that seen with common asthma drugs; he acknowledged the study's limitations, however, such as the results being based on a self-reported questionnaire instead of medical records, per CNET. Outside experts told the Post the real-world data could shape ongoing political and legal fights over gas stoves, even as critics say the study's demise shows science funding increasingly steered by politics. Spring's Post piece, which includes data, policy context, and personal stories, can be found here.