--- title: Your Gas Stove May Be Leaking Benzene Into Your Kitchen description: A new study shows that even when a gas stove is turned off, it is likely to still be emitting benzene, which raises health concerns. canonical: https://time.com/6223219/gas-stove-leaking-benzene/ author: Jeffrey Kluger article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2022-10-20T15:54:54.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:51:31.770Z article:section: Health og:title: Your Gas Stove May Be Leaking Benzene Into Your Kitchen og:description: A new study reveals that benzene, a chemical linked to health risks, can leak from gas stoves—even when they're off og:url: https://time.com/6223219/gas-stove-leaking-benzene/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc2f8bb59b295cd42/698a368f929faddeecbf9228/Stove.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5120 og:image:height: 2880 og:image:alt: Stove and oven in modern kitchen og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Your Gas Stove May Be Leaking Benzene Into Your Kitchen twitter:description: A new study reveals that benzene, a chemical linked to health risks, can leak from gas stoves—even when they're off twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc2f8bb59b295cd42/698a368f929faddeecbf9228/Stove.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Your Gas Stove May Be Leaking Benzene Into Your Kitchen—Even When It's Off > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ## Video: The Race to Make a Vaccine for Breast Cancer [Watch (HLS stream): The Race to Make a Vaccine for Breast Cancer](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/W5jcvwLu.m3u8) (8:09)  _Published 2022-10-05. Scientists believe there is a future in which women can be vaccinated against breast cancer._  by [Jeffrey Kluger](https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/)  ## Jeffrey Kluger Editor at Large Oct 20, 2022 3:54 PM UTC  A gas stove doesn't have to be on to be leaking deadly benzene A gas stove doesn't have to be on to be leaking deadly benzene Getty Images  by [Jeffrey Kluger](https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/)  ## Jeffrey Kluger Editor at Large Oct 20, 2022 3:54 PM UTC The U.S. goes through a lot of natural gas, consuming more than 30 trillion cubic feet of it last year, [according to](https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=50&t=8#:~:text=In%202021%2C%20the%20United%20States,%28Tcf%29%20of%20natural%20gas.&text=Last%20updated%3A%20May%2011%2C%202022,Monthly%20Energy%20Review%2C%20April%202022.) the U.S. Energy Information Administration—about 15% of which is burned by home appliances. On top of climate concerns—natural gas may be [less carbon polluting than coal](https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/natural-gas/natural-gas-and-the-environment.php#:~:text=Natural%20gas%20is%20a%20relatively,an%20equal%20amount%20of%20energy.), but the methane released during production is a powerful greenhouse gas in its own right—there is a growing awareness of the risk this gas poses to our health. According to a [new study](https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.2c02581) published today in the journal [_Environmental Science and Technology_](https://pubs.acs.org/journal/esthag), not only the atmosphere, but your kitchen may be a victim of contamination, with low levels of gas leaking from stoves even when they are turned off. More than a third of homes in the U.S. have [gas stoves](https://time.com/6176129/best-stove-for-health-environment-natural-gas-electric/), and these leaks are exposing people to a range of toxic chemicals, including toluene, hexene, xylenes, and especially benzene—a pollutant that has been linked to anemia, reproductive disorders, and [various forms of cancer](https://www.cancer.org/healthy/cancer-causes/chemicals/benzene.html#:~:text=IARC%20classifies%20benzene%20as%20%E2%80%9Ccarcinogenic,%2C%20and%20non%2DHodgkin%20lymphoma.). The study adds to a mounting body of research examining the environmental and health impact of gas stoves. Another [study](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.1c04707) released in January found that the methane leaking from natural gas stoves in the U.S. is equal to the emissions released by half-a-million gasoline-powered cars every year. Today’s study drills deeper into the health impacts. --- ### More from TIME --- “We found that the emissions from a gas stove while it’s off can produce, in some cases, concentrations of benzene in your house that are equivalent to living with a smoker,” said Eric Lebel, an environmental scientist at the policy institute [PSE Healthy Energy](https://www.psehealthyenergy.org/) and a coauthor of the new paper, at a press conference announcing the results. “For cancer, it’s pretty clearly stated by the World Health Organization (WHO) that there’s no safe level of benzene exposure.” ## How big a health risk are gas-stove benzene leaks? In the new study, the researchers did not venture a guess as to just how serious a health risk the benzene leaks pose. But the [U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention](https://wwwn.cdc.gov/TSP/MMG/MMGDetails.aspx?mmgid=35&toxid=14) (CDC), like the WHO, warns that benzene does all manner of damage to the body. In acute cases, it can affect the central nervous system, leading to headache, dizziness, impaired gait, and nausea. Systemically, it can interfere with blood cell production, potentially leading to both anemia and leukemia. It can also cause eye inflammation, visual blurring, heart arrhythmia, respiratory inflammation, and damage to the immune system. When the results of [yet another study](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.1c08298), in June, of gas leaks from stoves in Boston homes were published, the American Gas Association [issued a statement](https://insideclimatenews.org/news/28062022/natural-gas-stove-boston-toxic/) arguing that, “while combustion emissions from gas ranges, ovens, and cooktops can contribute to some degree to emissions of recognized pollutants, there are no documented risks to respiratory health from natural gas stoves from the regulatory and advisory agencies and organizations responsible for protecting residential consumer health and safety.” The organization added that the amounts of benzene that leak from stoves are “below conservative health-based screening levels” and would be “only a tiny fraction of the typical background levels of benzene in outdoor and indoor air.” While the group is a trade organization and thus has skin in the game, the warnings the CDC issues do point out that the greatest danger comes from higher levels of exposure, with concentrations great enough that a telltale sweet odor could be detected—which is not the case in the low-level, odorless emissions reported in the new paper. ## What we know about benzene leaks in California Lebel’s study involved sampling gas leakage from stoves in 159 homes across seven geographical regions in California, including the San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego, and Greater Los Angeles. The sample group cut across different socioeconomic neighborhoods and surveyed different brands and models of stoves and found that in every case, there were detectable levels of leaking benzene. The researchers expected some leakage of unburned gas when the stoves are in use, especially the pulses of gas produced in the few seconds between the time a burner is turned on and the gas ignites. “Sometimes they go click, click, click while they’re sparking and there’ll be some gas that escapes then,” said Lebel. Still, an estimated 75% of the benzene released into the home is produced when the stove is not in use. And that 75% adds up. Extrapolated across the state as a whole, the benzene leakage from gas appliances is the equivalent of adding 60,000 passenger cars to the road—venting their exhaust directly into your kitchen. Just which regions of the state are hit hardest by benzene emissions depends in part on which energy company pipes supplies to any one neighborhood. The three main companies that serve California are Pacific Gas and Electric, Southern California Gas, and San Diego Gas and Electric. Los Angeles and the North San Fernando Valley area—both served by Southern California Gas—had the highest level of benzene concentrations in the study. Over 22% of the samples from this supplier were above the median levels in homes supplied by Pacific Gas and Electric and San Diego Gas and Electric. “We’re not sure exactly why this is,” says Lebel, though the findings had nothing to do with the type of stoves used in the higher-benzene homes. “We think it has something to do with where the gas is being sourced from. California has two major pipelines for importing gas: one coming from the Rockies, and one coming in from Canada.” Southern California Gas draws from both sources, and determining which of the two is dirtier when it comes to benzene emissions would require a finer analysis than the study conducted, looking at which towns or neighborhoods were getting Canadian gas and which were getting Rocky Mountain gas. **Read more**: [_The Best Stove for Your Health and the Environment_](https://time.com/6176129/best-stove-for-health-environment-natural-gas-electric/) California is not the only state in which a study of this kind has been conducted—but it is one of just two. Earlier this year, Drew Michanowicz, a senior scientist at PSE Healthy Energy and a co-author of the new paper, published the similar study of gas stoves in the Boston area and found dangerous leakage of benzene there too—but nowhere near on the scale of California’s. “Even some of the lowest concentrations we detected in California are 10 times higher than the average we saw in Boston,” Michanowicz says. “Some of the highest concentrations that we found in California are about 66 times higher than the highest levels that we saw in Boston.” Again, the explanation may be the source of the natural gas, but that’s even harder to pin down in Boston than it is in California, because the companies serving the metropolitan area import their natural gas from a [mishmash of sources](https://www.mass.gov/info-details/natural-gas-distribution#:~:text=In%20addition%20to%20gas%20delivered,LNG%20plants%20in%20the%20state.), including Canada and Texas, as well as liquefied natural gas from Algeria and Trinidad. ## What you can do to limit benzene in your kitchen If stoves are leaking benzene in Boston and California, they are surely doing so everywhere else as well, and just what consumers can do to stay safe is limited. Opening windows and turning on range hoods while cooking certainly helps vent pulses of gas, but that does nothing for the vast majority of the time that stoves are not in use. Sniffing for leaks does not do much either. Sulfur-based compounds known as mercaptans are added to natural gas to give it its signature rotten-egg odor, specifically to alert consumers to leaks, but the quantity of gas leaked when stoves are not in use typically falls below what most people can detect by nose. Any leak that does cross the smell threshold requires immediate action, since it can pose an explosion risk. “​​You should immediately leave your house and call the gas company,” says Lebel. “It’s not good to be smelling gas in your house.” Long-term solutions involve doing away with gas appliances altogether and switching to cleaner, safer electric models. In 2022, California environmental regulators approved a plan to phase out the sale of natural-gas appliances by 2030, in a bid to curb fossil fuel use overall. But that is just one state in a nation of 50—all of which would have to follow California’s lead, and most of which are not likely to. In the meantime, the benzene—invisibly, odorlessly—continues to flow. ## Transcript Vaccines are often called The Miracle of modern medicine for their ability to Target the immune system against disease-causing, viruses and bacteria. Since they work against infectious diseases, why not against other conditions that have long plagued Humanity like cancer. To say we're working to develop a vaccine to prevent Cancers and individuals for the rest of your life. It sounds like Star Wars but it's not a concept that's totally unchartered me vaccines against human papillomavirus which is causative agent in certain types of human cancers. Work to prevent cancer in those individuals who get vaccinated and so are we? We no longer is nikoli more about the immune system in the last 20 years in the face of cancer. Studies and cancer. And now it's covid that we can bring this knowledge to this big goal of using a new system to prevent all types of cancers and and do so with humility and optimize the immune response against cancer by training cells to recognize tumors as foreign. Once that happens in breast cancer, it may be possible to not only prevent Prince's in people who have already had cancer, but to even prevent it in the first place, I was diagnosed in 1987 and I wasn't treated much differently from what the treatments or today. Oh, wow. Yes, there's a lot of focus on immunotherapy and that's exciting. It's exciting from a research perspective but it hasn't really made a difference in women's lives. Yet, we believe that a vaccine approach is certainly the key and primary prevention or preventing people from getting breast cancer to begin with because we believe that that is the future, that that is one of the areas that we should be focusing on now. We believe not only will it save lives, but it will also be less toxic than existing Therapies. You know, technologies that have have been developed over the past five to ten years. Are number one, immune checkpoint Inhibitors. So, immune checkpoint Inhibitors is a form of therapy that has been you know now approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in targeting a number of different cancers were, we had has been effective lasso in in certain tumors. And so, the reason that vaccines don't work against metastatic deposits of tumor is because the tumors themselves. Throw up a number of Walls that ultimately prevents the immune response from acting and killing the tumor. So the whole idea just like an infectious disease, vaccine used to identify what's foreign in the tumor as much as possible and to really craft A vaccine that targets what's foreign because that's really word. You know we're going to see the power of the immune response and in shrinking or preventing a cancer is having multiple targets within the tumor. But also having them be very foreign at the Mayo. Clinic Newton has developed a vaccine targeting, a very early form of breast cancer called ductal carcinoma inside you or DC, is he is working with his colleague dr. Amy degnan to test that vaccine experts, have debated in recent years, whether dcis is actually cancer since it involves lesions that remain in the ducts of the breast tissue and don't spread throughout the breast as other forms of breast cancer. Do about 50 1,000 women. A year are diagnosed with DC is in the US and some of those cases will become cancerous. Although doctors, can't predict which one As a result many women with the condition up to have radiation and surgery to remove the lesions to avoid the risk of developing cancer. if the immune system could be trained to attack tcis instead that would potentially help women to avoid the more invasive treatments, which some experts believe might be over treating their condition We are interested in pushing forward, you know, toward a goal of vaccines for breast cancer prevention. And so one strategy to do that is to then evaluate a vaccine that we found was safe and women who had invasive cancer and apply it to women who don't have invasive cancer yet who have this dcis and evaluate what kind of immune response we see in those women. And one of the things that were specifically interested in this study to see is what kind of response do we see in the breast tissue after this vaccine is given, can we find evidence that the immune system is reacting to the vaccine and potentially, you know, trying to clear out these cancer cells in the breast tissue. So, in this trial, we give the vaccine for several doses of the vaccine before surgery, and women who have dcis. And then at the time of We're removing their dcis as we would not normally to treat it, but we're also able to then investigate the breast tissue and the area of DCs and and see what is happening with the immune response there after the vaccine, the team at the Abramson Cancer Center, at Penn Medicine, is studying a different approach to a breast cancer vaccine. They are currently a rolling about 16th bull who have been diagnosed with cancer and who have the genetic mutations, bcra one or bcra to which put them at higher risk of developing breast cancer to see if vaccinating them will lower their chance of recurrence. The researchers also had to study a couple dozen people with the genetic risk, but who has not yet been diagnosed with cancer to see if the vaccine could lower their risk of ever developing the disease. It's a, it's a game changer and we recognize that we have a ways to go. But right now, if you're a 25 year old woman who has undergone genetic testing and is told that you have a safe for me to yishun, you're talkin about raining for the rest of your life for your breasts or deciding to do a bilateral, mastectomy have your breasts removed and at this point we had no effective screening for ovarian cancer. And so we strongly recommend that individuals have their ovaries removed between ages, 35 and 44 a beer, signaling carrier, putting them into early menopause. And with all the attendant Dallas ring consequence that we really have not had great options apart from surgical options. And, you know, we're working on many different types of strategies to try alternative National the natural history. But this concept of immune interception being able to use the immune system to change the natural history for these individual is so critical. We are probably at the end of the era of using cancer, vaccines with great hope in a patient, whose party been treated with everything in the tumor is still Advanced to using these vaccines and all our new knowledge in patients, who are at risk for relapse or individuals who are simply a high risk for cancer and we want to prevent so prevention. 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