Air in plane cabin CAN damage your health say scientists
FLYING should have a health warning because tainted air in aircraft can cause serious problems, researchers suggest.
A study of more than 200 aircrew shows links between fumes and ill health from the air blown into aircraft cabins.
Researchers from Stirling university found a clear pattern of acute and chronic symptoms ranging from headaches and dizziness to breathing and vision problems.
Dr Susan Michaelis, of the university’s occupational and environmental health research group, said: ‘This research provides very significant findings relevant to all aircraft workers and passengers globally.
‘There is a clear cause-and-effect relationship linking health effects to a design feature that allows the aircraft air supply to become contaminated by engine oils and other fluids in normal flight.
‘This is a clear occupational and public health issue with direct flight-safety consequences.’
Two separate reviews of aircrew who had been exposed to reported incidents of fumes were analysed. In one, 65 per cent reported ill health effects.
In the other, which looked at specific oil leak incidents, 75 per cent recorded adverse symptoms in a crew member.
Two-thirds of the cases involved further reports of fumes both before and after the incident. The symptoms for 93 per cent ranged from in-flight impairment to inca-
‘Clear cause and effect’
pacitation. Professor vyvyan Howard, at the university of ulster, added: ‘What we are seeing here is aircraft crew being repeatedly exposed to low levels of hazardous contaminants from the engine oils in air, and to a lesser extent this also applies to frequent fliers. We know from a large body of toxicological scientific evidence that such an exposure pattern can cause harm and, in my opinion, explains why aircrew are more susceptible than average to associated illness.
‘However, exposure to this complex mixture should be avoided also for passengers, susceptible individuals and the unborn.’
The authors say that the most likely cause of so-called ‘aerotoxic syndrome’ is organophosphate chemicals used in jet engines.
Because the chemicals attack the outer coatings of nerve cells ‘it tends not to cause a clear-cut set of localising signs and symptoms that are instantly recognisable as a syndrome, but a pattern of diffuse neurological symptoms’.
Multiple sclerosis, which involves a similar type of nerve damage, also has diffuse symptoms, the authors said.
In conclusion, the authors write in the journal Public Health Panorama, a journal of the uN World Health Organisation: ‘A clear cause and effect relationship has been identified linking the symptoms, diagnoses and findings to the occupational environment.
‘Recognition of this new occupational disorder and a clear medical investigation protocol are urgently needed.’ The Department for Transport has said that there is no conclusive evidence of a link.