Cancer-related mortality among US pilots and flight attendants • Hacker News Board

Re: Cancer-related mortality among US pilots and flight attendants

#111

Post by LorenPechtel » Sat, Aug 22, 2026, 10:43 PM UTC

kaikai wrote: post #102

LorenPechtel wrote: post #95

This doesn't really say what it looks like it says. They don't have an above average risk of dying of cancer. Rather, if they die they are more likely than average to have died of cancer. Which is not exactly surprising given that the medical screenings remove many of those who would die of heart issues. What would be strange is if there wasn't a higher percentage of cancer deaths.

… IF they die?

You do not understand what I'm saying.

To illustrate, my numbers are not meant to be accurate. Population at large, 100 red marbles (heart), 80 black marbles (cancer), 80 blue marbles (everything else). Cancer is 80/260 of the total.

Medical checks, you removed 80 of those red marbles. Now you have cancer at 80/180 of the total.

The percentage of cancer went up. Did the total cancer? No.

Re: Cancer-related mortality among US pilots and flight attendants

#112

Post by westurner » Sat, Aug 22, 2026, 11:04 PM UTC

4d4m wrote: post #8

Boeing, Bombardier, Learjet, Embraer and Airbus should be forced to clean up aircraft cabin air they poison us with. For people who don’t know how GROSS this is: on almost every modern passenger jet, the air you breathe is pulled through the engine’s Bleed-Air system before entering the cabin. As oil, hydraulic fluid, or other contaminants leak into that system, those superheated fumes can be pumped directly into the…

> oil, hydraulic fluid, or other contaminants

Will safe aerospace batteries spare us from this?

Recently designed a sustainable thermofluid that it says would work as hydraulic fluid and a de-icing fluid: LBGPC: Lignin, BioPG, Graphene, Phytic acid, Citric acid

Re: Cancer-related mortality among US pilots and flight attendants

#113

Post by westurner » Sat, Aug 22, 2026, 11:15 PM UTC

ViktorRay wrote: post #35

Cancers rates among Orthopedic surgeons are also much higher than those faced by non surgeon doctors. This is due to exposure to the radiation from intra operative x rays.

Replacing X-Ray and CT with new imaging would reduce exposure.

HIFU ultrasound arrays are already approved.

Recent research here indicates that longitudinally-polarized Proca waves are usable for Angstrom-scale medical imaging and treatments including tumor lysis and DNA repair.

There are apparently ways to target cancerous cells by their bio signatures in order to only target non-benign tissues.

I'm happy that I kept on with this line of research long enough to realize the medical capabilities (and fire suppression) it enables;

Public link: "I/Q Sampling for Signal Phase" https://share.gemini.google/rDVcVwDnWPTc

It's a Twistor-Grassmanian mapping?

Re: Cancer-related mortality among US pilots and flight attendants

#114

Post by sellmesoap » Sun, Aug 23, 2026, 9:26 PM UTC

mrguyorama wrote: post #88

giov4 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also don't have a pretty sensitive smell and I smelled it a lot, especially cherosene like while boarding and before or during taxing, but later gets better. it happened to me only on certain planes or cheaper airlines and i never managed to correlate it enough to plane, situation or airline. the smell is very pungent and scratches the throats, typical fulel /exhaust like. I learned about the air system passing thr…

The conditions that trigger the "Fuel like smell" of kerosene is that you are in a place where thousands of gallons of actual kerosene are handled, moved, spilled, and burned every day. The air quality at an airport is horrific, in general, and as long as the plane is on the ground, it will be moving that air into the cabin. People notice it because you go from highly filtered, airport air, to unfiltered air on the j…

Not to mention the leaded gasoline used in smaller planes flying in and out of the same airports.

Re: Cancer-related mortality among US pilots and flight attendants

#115

Post by asdff » Wed, Aug 26, 2026, 5:53 PM UTC

jader201 wrote: post #22

RajT88 wrote: post #7

Attendants have higher risk than pilots. This kind of makes sense, as my understanding is they don't have pilots fly too often. Meanwhile, attendants are flying all the time.

> as my understanding is they don't have pilots fly too often From a quick search, I can’t find evidence of this. If anything, pilots are in the air more of their week/lives vs. flight attendants.

It varies with the airline and their staffing needs and your seniority as well. Some might fly you to your legal limits and you might have to get a ride back home on top of that. Some you might be on call but never really called, and might not be formally scheduled for much, and therefore might only fly a couple times a month through some stretches.