NOT JUST BAE 146 and 757
 

Ladies and gentlemen great to see many concerned pilots out there looking for the truth!! The misconception that aerotoxic syndrome is for only pilots of these 2 types is a myth. While these 2 types did a lot of damage to crew so is just about every other type of jet airliner using a bleed system for air con. I have been seriously ill for 8 years having flown none of the forementioned types. There are tests available to detect genetic predisposition. I would ask any pilot interested to contact me via PM. I know that given the opportunity to test and perhaps make career (and in some instances life saving) decisions all those years ago I would have jumped at it....instead I had those decisions made for me by airline Dr's that deprived me of the truth!

Any truth in the rumour that organophosphates are in those sprays they use
in the cabin going to/from OZ?

A concerned business friend frequent flyer of mine rang me (a bit too early) this morning to inform me that the story is again front page of the Sunday Express:

Toxic air plane crash warning | UK | Express.co.uk - Home of the Daily and Sunday Express

What I would like to know, is how can BALPA go from this position in 2005 following a BALPA conference examining all the facts :


to a position of denial of a problem?

What odds would I get at William Hill on these 5 possibilities:

1. Final indexed linked salary pension scheme for their General Secretary, so why rock the boat?

2. BALPA new Head of Flight Safety is the former Head Doctor at the CAA?

3. BALPA losing too many members to the new Virgin Pilot union Home so best not upset industry?

4. BALPA frightened the families of one of the deceased will sue BALPA for their failure to see their members properly protected in the work place?

5. or this one that came from a BA CSD who says she overheard some BA union reps saying BALPA were financially in the poo house as they had paid 3 million in an out of court settlement to BA last year linked to an Open Skies Watergate cover-up. :D

Perhaps I need to go back to flying fast jet in the military at least we had oxygen masks :)

fragatang Google this paper:

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL MEDICINE 50:345–356 (2007)
Pesticide Illness Among Flight Attendants
Due to Aircraft Disinsection

CAA doctors independence
 

Joking of course.
My last companys medical service was giving us anti malarial drugs that were banned in Germany because they caused liver damage with every dose.

Was admitted to RAF Halton in 1975 with suspected liver cancer although I wasn't told that but my wife was told I had a few days to live. Had years of liver pain and bowel trouble...flying the Trident at the time.
Mystery illness that I was offered anti depressants for and one :mad: in management tried to sack me as I was obviously of a nervous disposition and not suited to aviation.(flew four hours yesterday in the mountains under spinnaker nylon - so much for nervous).
12 years later I became very ill again - put down to the after affects of too many antibiotics and malaria.. Offered anti depressants again. I was flying the Dc10 and had quite a few flights as pax on the 146.
Eventually I recovered but suffer from tinitus and short term memory problems.
My last company had a policy of categorising obvious aviation caused health problems as non industry related because they had to pay the medical bills etc.
Eventually lost my licence on health grounds.

frangatang.. if you mean the cabin pesticide sprays that the dollies walk up and down the cabin with then no.

They use Permethrin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia at about 1%...

you get it in most camping shops as a wash in agent for clothes and mozzie nets as it kills on contact.

Wider and wider?
http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/5...pacitated.html

If it's scientifically established that a small percentage of humans is biologically vulnerable to certain chemicals, would it not be possible to screen potential employees before giving them jobs in the air? In the same way that air-forces screen for colour-blindness?

Or would that mean that they'd have to do the same thing with passengers?

- if, as seems to be conclusive, this is a real problem, I suspect very few pax would really like to know they were likely to inhale these fumes.

Three Miles

I can't possibly comment on your points 1 - 4 but knowing how BA's "Galley FM" works I'd say point #5 is decidedly shaky and sounds very much like wishful thinking.

DNA testing
 

Overthewing:

Yes and Yes.

Medical information

If they can identify a 500 year old skeleton found under a Leicester council car park as Richard 111, former King of England.....beyond reasonable doubt. ie 99%.

Only 51% Balance of Probability needed for mere mortals and little kiddies....

BALPA changed its position from insisting something needs to be done to now saying it is hyperventilation. Why? How?

Well... discounting the rumours of blackmail - of which I have not heard of any real evidence, look at the personnel changes...

2009 Dr Rob Hunter left the CAA to become BALPA's Head Of Safety - a new (highly) paid post created for him. BALPA later start using Dr Mike Bagshaw as a consultant to their Ops. Av. Med. Group.

When the rest of the world acknowledged this problem, but UK did not, Mike Bagshaw was head of British Airways Health Service and Dr Rob Hunter was head of CAA Medical dept.

CAA and BA cannot go back on their earlier view because it makes their earlier decision reckless. Did they instead change the BALPA stance to align it with the old CAA/BA position, making it easy to say later that "we all got it wrong so it wasn't us failing in our duty of care, it was a lack of compelling evidence?

IMHO this UK disgrace apears to be down to just 2 people - Dr Rob Hunter and Dr Mike Bagshaw. I suggest BALPA members need to take some action against their union.

But does BALPA have a "Duty of care" over this? Any legal experts have a view?

Hyperventilation?
 

... and Dr Bagshaw's explanation fails to account for the fact that the symptoms go on for weeks, months, or, as in a case I am very familiar with, 22 years. Is he suggesting this person as been hyperventilating for 22 years?

How does he account for passengers and cabin crew also being affected, or for the fact that biomarkers show some pilots as having had low-level chronic poisoning, meaning they probably never had a notable smoke/fumes event?

Duty of Care
 

You misunderstand me. The duty of care was owed by employers - ie BA - and therefore Dr Bagshaw, and the authority's medical department, ie Dr Hunter.

BALPA has a contractual responsibility to its members to use their money wisely and to protect their interests.

Dr Bagshaw has also consulted for Airbus as well!! Please correct me if I am wrong.....His hyperventilation theory is nonsensical and is based on no sound scientific evidence.

Respiratory experts view of 'Hyperventilation'.
 

The industry key to hyperventilation is that it is due to individuals 'health weekness' - the A/C is NOT the cause....

QED.

View of Dr Jonathan Burdon - respiratory expert - on hyperventilation:

http://www.aerotoxic.org/download/do..._27%282%29.pdf

Professor Michael Bagshaw - Hyperventilation in Air Crew

hyperventilation
 

A mate of mine made an emergency descent after a Trident cabin decompression in the 1970s.
The next day he checked in but felt a little bit unwell so he went over to BA medical service who sent him home. He then went to his GP who sent him to hospital.
He underwent an emergency procedure for a collapsed lung later same day which saved his life.
Amazing what can happen to aircrew if they hyperventilate.
Absolute disgrace which seems to be still happening.

"Irritant rather than a toxic effect"
 

http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/factor200412.pdf

"Irritant rather than a toxic effect"

The CAA view in 2004 (of a 2000 incident) was that oil fumes were 'irritating....' how right they were, but the wrong sort of 'irritation'.

How do the CAA continue to get away with it now - day in day out?

That's the mystery.

Does anyone else smell a rat and the mother and father of all unchallenged cover up's?

I do no more than ask a few varied relevant questions for discussion. I also admit to having a cynical regard for various XAA's. They do not bite the hand that feeds them.

In the mid-90's LH & AZ unions had a joint scientific study done on the possible effect of cosmic radiation on frequent flyers. In some extracts of their reports were stories of German scientists taking geiger counters unto FL370 and them going berserk. There was even talk of 'shielding' the B747's but at a prohibitive cost. It seems there were many serious conclusions drawn, but to my knowledge nothing has ever been done other than create a calculation of accumulated cosmic radiation exposure based on rosters. The companies then tell us there is nothing to worry about as we are below limits. I've never heard a counter argument from the scientific community nor the unions. After hearing that NASA scientists conclude that LoCo rosters are not fatiguing I've added them to my list of cynical regards.

Then there were the DVT incidents. Lots of newspaper coverage; a grudging acceptance by XAA's that there was a medical case to answer, but it was only pax who were discussed. They can walk about in the cabin, but pilots locked behind cockpit doors for hours with no room to move were not considered potential victims. FTL's have increased and XAA's and unions have allowed the subject to drift into apathetic history.

The oil fumes in the cabin atmosphere debate has been around for years and has been acknowledged as having a case to answer, but what has been done about it? Not a lot. Consider MSRA in hospitals; it doesn't effect them all nor all the residents therein. At least they acknowledge it publicly and try to do something about it, but the task of elimination is too great, but they try.

Regarding the 3 risks above has there been any real effort to counter them or is it considered too expensive for the level of risk involved? I am certain that whatever decision has been made to address or ignore will have money at the root of it. That and the fact the XAA's are, allegedly, in the pockets of the airlines. There is too much conflict of interest in many of their deliberations. Too much money involved. Flight safety is considered to be only about stopping a/c crashing. That failure or success can be quantified; all the other voodoo mumbo-jumbo can not. There's a very lumpy carpet somewhere.