Gas stoves are linked to more than one out of every eight cases of childhood asthma in the U.S., according to new research. The findings, published just before Christmas in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, come as the Biden administration considers taking action to safeguard the public from the health dangers posed by gas stoves.

The health and climate dangers of gas-burning stoves (even when turned off) are well-established, but the fact that 650,000 American children have asthma attributed to gas stoves — about the same amount as second-hand smoke — was still “eye popping” for researchers. “We knew this was a problem but we didn’t know how bad,” Brady Seals of RMI who undertook the research with epidemiologists from the U.S. and Australia. “This study shows that if we got rid of gas stoves we would prevent 12.7% of childhood asthma cases, which I think most people would want to do.”

“We can and must FIX this,” DOE Secretary Jennifer Granholm tweeted Wednesday. (The Guardian, Washington Post $, Gizmodo, CBS, Yahoo, Boston Globe $, Boston.com, CBS Boston, The Saxon)