Article Text
Statistics from Altmetric.com
I am grateful for these four wide-ranging and incisive commentaries on my paper discussing the ethical issues that arise when we consider the carbon footprint of inhalers.1 As I am unable to address every point raised, instead I focus on what I take to be the common thread running through these papers. Each response has something to say regarding the scope of healthcare’s responsibility to mitigate climate change. This can be explored at the intuitional or structural level, or at the individual patient and practitioner level leading to a further issue of the relationship between these perspectives.
Coverdale argues for broadening the scope of individual responsibilities regarding the climate.2 Discussing inhalers does not go far enough and doctors, argues Coverdale, are well placed to draw attention to the various behaviour changes patients can undertake both through role modelling and in the clinic. While Coverdale makes some excellent points, I have three worries about his proposal. One is relevance. Climate concerns may not always be pertinent in the clinical encounter; think of counselling a bereaved patient or somebody needing a fit note. Related to this is opportunity. General practitioners capacity to cover an inordinate amount in a 10 min consultation …
Footnotes
Twitter @joshp_j
Contributors The author solely responsible for this work.
Funding This study was funded by the Wellcome Trust (223463/Z/21/Z).
Competing interests None declared.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.
Read the full text or download the PDF:
Other content recommended for you
- Costs of switching to low global warming potential inhalers. An economic and carbon footprint analysis of NHS prescription data in England
- Barriers to green inhaler prescribing: ethical issues in environmentally sustainable clinical practice
- Environmental impact of inhalers for respiratory diseases: decreasing the carbon footprint while preserving patient-tailored treatment
- Green prescribing is good, but patients do not have a duty to accept it
- Towards net zero: asthma care
- Carbon footprint impact of the choice of inhalers for asthma and COPD
- Effects of switching from a metered dose inhaler to a dry powder inhaler on climate emissions and asthma control: post-hoc analysis
- Thoughtful prescription of inhaled medication has the potential to reduce inhaler-related greenhouse gas emissions by 85%
- Inhaler devices for asthma
- Reducing carbon footprint of inhalers: analysis of climate and clinical implications of different scenarios in five European countries