A one dimensional photochemical model has been used to evaluate the hypothesis that the oxidation of H2 and N2O by O2(b1&Sgr;g) could lead to significant production of OH and odd-nitrogen in the middle atmosphere. For the reaction with H2, even if all the quenchings lead to oxidation, the change in the OH column is only 13%. This is still two small to resolve the discrepancy between the model and ground based measurements and furthermore could not account for the apparent change in the ground based column with time. For the reaction with N2O, it is possible to produce significant odd-nitrogen in the lower stratosphere only if the oxidation yield is at least 5--10%. However, one then gets a surplus of odd-nitrogen in the upper stratosphere unless one makes the additional assumption that the production of O2(b1&Sgr;g) from O(1D) quenching is small.