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Cancer-related mortality among US pilots and flight attendants

cnn.com

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

#51

Post by sigmoid10 »

seethishat wrote: post #27

I read once that a CT scan is roughly equivalent to 1000 hours of flight WRT radiation exposure. I've had about 6 or 8 of those over the years.

Depends on the actual scan. A head CT can be as little as one sievert while a full blown angiogramm can be more than ten sievert. A pilot can accrue 40k flight hours over his career. If 90% of that is at cruising altitude (meaning 3-6 microsievert/hour), that would be 100-200 mSv in total. That would be equivalent to more than a hundred head CTs or a dozen angios. If you need that many CTs, your lifetime cancer risk is probably your smallest concern. But you still wouldn't expose any normal human to that level of radiation.

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

#52

Post by seizethecheese »

criddell wrote: post #24
4d4m wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite interesting. My reaction is that one of these is much more easily controlled and an input for cancer than the other. Radiation shielding is a tougher solve due to weight and other factors, where air quality is an easy, known fix. Would love both to be solved, which would lead to good outcomes. Any thoughts on why attendants have different outcomes?

Off topic: when did using solve as a noun take off? There are so many good nouns that work there (challenge, task, etc...) or use the verb form (is tougher to solve).

Also "invite" instead of invitation.

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

#53

Post by zahlman »

4d4m wrote: post #36
strictnein wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is so pervasive you'll see airline attendants spraying glycol-based air fresheners during these times to COVER UP the smell of this toxic stuff I've never once seen a flight attendant do that. Flown hundreds and hundreds of times. You'd think something that's "so pervasive" would have been common enough that I'd have seen it dozens of times?

https://farahandfarah.com/blog/toxic-airplane-fumes-workers-... Feels like youre defensive about this would love to know why. If you havent seen aerosols on a flight youre being disengenous or are not looking up/around. They are used for lavoratories and pest fumiagation during passengered flights regularly - and those are uses we agreed to as a society. Ive seen firsthand them sprayed during takeoff and landing at t…

> Feels like youre defensive about this would love to know why.

It couldn't possibly be that someone else has real-world experiences that differ from your own?

> If you havent seen aerosols on a flight youre being disengenous or are not looking up/around.

Or they just actually really weren't used on any of the flights GP was on?

> Ive seen firsthand them sprayed during takeoff and landing

GP hasn't, and neither have I.

Your experiences are not universal and it is impolite to accuse others of being "disingenuous" simply for reporting experiences that differ from your own.

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

#56

Post by andrehacker »

magnetic wrote: post #45
seethishat wrote: post #27

I read once that a CT scan is roughly equivalent to 1000 hours of flight WRT radiation exposure. I've had about 6 or 8 of those over the years.

This chart has the flight & CT scan scenarios (among many other): https://xkcd.com/radiation/

Wonderful work by Mr. XKCD (Randall Munroe). This was published in 2011 when there was "some" misinformation in the U.S. press about the Fukushima nuclear accident.

Based on this chart some proposed to use "bananas" as unit of radition (equivalent to 0.1 uSv).

So (from this chart) one flight from New York to LA exposes you to 400 bananas worth of radiation.

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

#57

Post by elromulous »

I've wondered if billionaires get their jets lined with lead.

Lead is notoriously heavy, but if you buy a 737 and it only ever has to fly you and a couple other people, it might be feasible.

Or I guess they could just line one section where they spend the majority of the time.

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

#58

Post by francisofascii »

missedthecue wrote: post #17
Supermancho wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

paywalled (even with a "free" account")

Cancer Flight attendants Pilots ------------------------------------------------------ All radiation-related 1.50x 1.36x Breast cancer 1.61x 1.57x CNS / brain cancer 1.51x 1.28x Multiple myeloma 1.34x 1.08x Leukemia 1.12x 1.27x Lymphoma 1.19x 1.04x Prostate cancer 1.75x 1.38x Melanoma 1.63x 1.28x Nonmelanoma skin cancer 1.50x 1.22x Other cancers 1.21x 0.97x It was a cross-sectional analysis of U.S. death certificates…

I suspect they don't have regular sleep schedules, which partially explains the elevated risk. Nurses and 3rd shift workers all have elevated cancer risk.
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