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A Hidden Contributor to Climate Change — Asthma Inhalers

In 2020, metered-dose inhalers made up 75 percent of inhalers in use in the United States, with the equivalent emissions impact of driving half a million cars for a year. The outsized carbon footprint of these inhalers is a result of hydrofluoroalkanes (HFAs), the active propellant that administers the medication in the inhaler. HFAs were an improvement from the original propellant in metered-dose inhalers, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which damage the ozone layer. HFAs have no impact on the ozone layer but still have 1,000 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide. There is, however, a clinically effective and more environmentally friendly alternative: a dry-powder inhaler. Dry-powder…

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 Major drugmakers capped cost of asthma inhalers at $35 per month after investigation from Democrats

“After years of drugmakers hiking the cost of inhalers and making them unaffordable for patients, people are finally getting some relief,” Dach added. “We must build on this momentum and continue the work of making life-saving medications affordable for everyone in this country.”

 My Opinion of Many Asthma Inhalers

We asthma experts often say that finding what asthma inhalers work best for you is a matter of trial and error. This is true even for us asthma experts who have asthma. My quest to learn what works best for me began during the 1970s. Since then, I have tried nearly every asthma inhaler. Here is my personal opinion of all the ones currently on the market.

 The Cruel Irony of Inhalers That Make Climate Change Worse

Such is the case with metered-dose inhalers, which are prescribed to treat two of the most common respiratory diseases in the United States: asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. These inhalers use hydrofluorocarbon aerosol propellants to help deliver medication into the lungs. The propellants are greenhouse gases that can trap heat roughly 1,500 to 3,600 times as well as carbon dioxide over 100 years. The good news is there are other inhalers that are effective, are cost-competitive and can contain the same active ingredients but aren’t nearly as damaging to the climate. One type of these devices, known as dry-powder inhalers...

Articles of Interest

Asthma inhalers celebrate 60th anniversary with debate on over-prescription

Asthma sufferers who rely on an inhaler to manage their condition owe a debt of gratitude to a teenage American girl. A sufferer of the disease, in the early 1950s she posed a question to her father: “Why can’t they put my asthma medicine in a spray can like they do for perfume?”

Asthma treatments and correct inhaler technique: Dr Peter Bremner

So we have two groups of drugs that work in two different ways to treat the two causes of the narrowing of the bronchial tubes. The most important of these of course is the preventer. Because if you don’t use the preventer then you’re at much greater risk of having an asthma attack.

How One Commonly Used Asthma Inhaler is Damaging the Planet

Now, it appears, we can add asthma control to the list pharmaceutical blowbacks we didn’t see coming. According to a new study published in BMJ Open, the familiar lightweight, pocket-sized aerosolized inhalers that make breathing easier for so many of the 235 million people worldwide who suffer from asthma may be choking the planet on a powerful greenhouse gas they release in the process.

Many Asthma Patients Use Their Inhalers Incorrectly, Research Shows

They hold it wrong, breathe at the wrong time, or forget to shake the device

Switching asthma inhalers could reduce carbon emissions, says study

Emissions from asthma inhalers could power all the homes in a city the size of Milwaukee for an entire year

The History of the Asthma Inhaler

Borrowing expertise on propellants and aerosols from the cosmetics technicians down the hall, and using a recently patented metering valve capable of delivering precise amounts of atomized liquid, Porush created the first metered-dose inhaler (MDI) in just two months. By March 1956, the Food and Drug Administration had approved two new aerosol drugs for asthma, as well as Porush’s device for delivering them. “It was a game changer,” says Stephen Stein, a scientist at Kindeva Drug Delivery (a descendant of Riker Labs) and co-author of a recent history of therapeutic aerosols.

Your asthma puffer is probably contributing to climate change, but there’s a better alternative

The good news is, for many people with asthma, there’s an easy solution: shifting from metered dose inhalers to dry powder inhalers. As above, this won’t suit everyone, but will be possible for many.