Nemrytter you do write a lot of sense but you are UK based and therefore have no excuses to ignore the disgrace over the Organo Phosphate decades of denial, spin and lies for the farming community.
Did the methodologies you describe equally apply there too? Or that mild sleeping assistance, Thalidomide?
The record is not perfect and vested interests have always been deeply involved in these previous tragedies.
Rob
One should always have a
healthy scepticism for the position of those with vested interests on issues such as this. That goes both ways, however: One should not base an entire argument upon suppositions and anecdotes.
We know that certain substances can, in great enough doses, cause harm. We know that those substances can be present in aircraft cabin air. What we don't know is how often these substances are present, and whether they are present in amounts great enough to cause any harm. Current research based upon interviewing flight crews suggests that they may, on rare occasions, be present in great enough doses. Current research based upon actually measuring the concentrations of these substances suggests that they are not present in such doses.
Obviously there's more research to be done, and is being done right now by many different groups of researchers (some independent, others not). Quite frankly the hyperbolic comments by many (not just here) are silliness. Websites with skull-and-crossbones, talk of conspiracies and a general hyperbolic exaggeration of the slightest fume incident don't help. In fact, I'd say that this type of stuff hinders a proper understanding of fume events and how they may cause health issues. I was at a meeting a few weeks ago where we had one crew representative who was shouting that "these aircraft are killing us, we will all be dead within a decade". That talk is deeply unhelpful.
Yes, I know that's easy to say and harder to do when you believe you're being exposed to these fumes but, unfortunately, that's life. Screaming about it and presenting some hideously distorted version of events makes things harder for everyone. Again, that goes both ways. Figuring out the facts will be done, but it can't be done instantly and it does require solid facts and evidence - something proponents of 'aerotoxic' are a little short of at this time.
(edit) The news article above is a perfect example of this: Rather than trying to get expert opinion they try to push something through the courts, knowing there's not enough evidence available. Deeply unhelpful.