Dr Adam Crossley .

Carmel Sparke DESFLURANE , one of three main

anaesthetic agents used in Australia and around the world , has a serious downside as a potent greenhouse gas .

How bad ? During just one hour of surgery on one patient , the discharge vented outside the theatre produces the equivalent emissions as driving a petrol car 320km down the road .

Or put another way , it is more than 2500 times more warming than carbon dioxide .

The fact that it has been effectively

banned in WA public hospitals is partly the product of campaigning by anaesthetist Dr Adam Crossley .

The medical lead for climate health and environmental sustainability at the Fiona Stanley Fremantle Hospitals Group had already helped to convince his own organisation to stop buying the drug back in 2020 .

But last month , WA Health announced that desflurane would be removed from all the state ’ s public hospitals too — effectively reducing the state ’ s carbon footprint by the

equivalent of 1440 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions every year .

This is roughly akin to allowing 72,000 trees to grow over the same period .

“ This was a project that was started and run by clinical staff ,” Dr Crossley tells Australian Doctor .

“ We then managed to make that connection between clinicians and the higher-up bodies within WA Health in the name of helping the environment .”

He says anaesthetists can continue to use sevoflurane when a volatile

anaesthetic is needed , but its carbon emissions are some 50-60 times less than desflurane . And there is also IV propofol — again , a cheaper , less environmentally damaging option .

Dr Crossley also stresses that desflurane — a highly fluorinated methyl ethyl ether — can still be used as an option of last resort .

Dr Crossley says Scotland has already introduced its own desflurane ban and that England was moving towards one too , with other states around Australia looking to follow suit .

Carmel Sparke WOMEN are more likely to experience systemic and injection site reactions to influenza shots regardless of age or vaccine type , Canadian researchers say .

Their meta-analysis showed that , for every 1000 flu vaccinations , an additional 115 cases of injection site reactions and 74 extra cases of systemic reactions could be expected in women versus men .

The University of Montreal – led team reviewed 18 studies with more than 34,000 adults to assess sex differences in flu shot reactions , with participants divided into two age groups : 18-65 and over-65s .

They analysed adverse event reports within seven days of vaccination , as well as other health outcomes up to four weeks later and any serious events reported during the study period from 2010 to 2018 .

Overall , women under 65 faced a 29 % greater risk of injection site reactions than men , while the risk was 43 % higher among older women . Women were also at heightened risk of systemic reactions in both age groups — 25 % higher for younger women and 27 % greater for older participants . While the rate of severe reactions was low , these occurred about two times more frequently in women than in men .

In other findings , the use of a trivalent or quadrivalent vaccine made no difference to reactions rates , the authors reported in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health . They said studies rarely examined between-sex differences but that explaining this risk could reduce vaccine hesitancy .

“ Data from [ randomised controlled trials ] suggest that most reactions following influenza vaccinations are mild , self-limited and rarely serious ,” they wrote . J Epidemiol Community Health 2023 ; 21 Sep .