Poisoning fear in gas geysers

 Gas geysers in ill-ventilated bathrooms may pose a hazard to health, according to doctors who set out to investigate several cases of unexplained seizures and transient loss of consciousness in otherwise healthy people.

The doctors at the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital (SGRH), New Delhi, said they have documented an “uncanny similarity” in 26 patients over a two-year period — each patient had a neurological event in a small and ill-ventilated bathroom with a gas geyser. Power cuts or erratic electricity supply have prompted some households across India to switch from electric geysers to domestic gas geysers — appliances that use liquefied petroleum gas to heat water.

The doctors believe the 26 patients they had observed had been exposed to high amounts of toxic gases, mainly carbon monoxide, released because of incomplete combustion of LPG in the gas geysers in ill-ventilated bathrooms. “These are purely anecdotal observations but we see a clear-cut association between their symptoms and the way they had used their gas geysers,” Chandrashekhar Agrawal, head of neurology at the SGRH told The Telegraph.

The gas exposure appeared to trigger seizures in 11 patients, carbon monoxide intoxication in 13 patients, and precipitated epilepsy in two patients, the doctors said, reporting their findings yesterday in the Annals of the Indian Academy of Neurology. All the patients regained consciousness quickly and had no further neurological problems, the doctors said, except for two patients, including a 23-year old engineer, who have developed early features of Parkinson’s disease.

None of the patients had any history of seizure, stroke, head injury, cardiovascular risk factor for transient loss of consciousness, indicating that the “root cause” of their neurological events may lie in the way they used their geysers. Agrawal and his colleagues, Pamela Correia and Rajeev Ranjan, said their observations highlight the need to introduce stringent regulations for the installation of gas geysers. “Such appliances are typically sold with detailed instructions on how to use them safely — people need to follow these instructions,” Agrawal said. Gas heating appliances are to be used in well-ventilated rooms and the room size should be in proportion with the capacity of the heater.

Medical researchers in the UK had observed the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning from bathroom gas water heaters nearly 40 years ago. A study from Bristol, UK, published in the Health Education Journal in 1973, had observed that among a sample of 66 gas water heaters, 12 per cent produced toxic room atmospheres — with carbon monoxide concentrations greater than 500 parts per million. Studies over the past decade from Australia, New Zealand and France have also identified carbon monoxide as a pollutant released by gas heaters.