Press Release 27-29 June 2023 Cabin Air Conference ‘Bio marker blood test announcement’
https://www.aircraftcabinair.com/schedule
Aerotoxic Association
Press Release
Immediate Release
Monday 26 June 2023:
A new Bio marker blood test announcement will be critical for the future safety of jet aviation.
For over 70 years, public health has been adversely affected by random, frequent exposures to often visible oil fumes in the confines of most jet aircraft as heated ‘Bleed air’ is piped unmonitored and unfiltered into jet cockpits and cabins affecting all jet flyers – both aircrew and passengers.
The Boeing 787 is the only jet flying with a ‘bleed free’ architecture design from 2009.
The public illness was first published as Aerotoxic Syndrome (AS) in 1999 by doctors and scientists from the US, France, and Australia.
But ever since, many vested interests have denied any causal link between jet flyer toxic exposures and serious ill health symptoms, which are dismissed as ‘jetlag’.
Whilst countless public Court cases around the world show that all is not well with a fundamental design flaw on the brink of being exposed at an ‘On line’ 18th annual Cabin Air conference from 27-29 June 2023 at which US/UK/EU scientists, politicians, Union leaders, doctors, Cabin Air campaigners and ‘Aerotoxic sufferers’ will all share their latest evidence in public, as a matter of public interest.
Dutch published research of 2016 calculated that around one million flyers with Aerotoxic Syndrome in Europe alone. But as AS is caused by a fundamental design flaw – little can be done to stop it as for over 70 years public illness has become a normal and accepted part of flying in ‘Bleed air’ jets.
No toxic air sensors are presently installed in any jets where human noses are still used, whilst carbon monoxide sensors are often mandated in domestic homes.
There are two ‘Schools of thought’ of which toxic chemicals cause documented acute & chronic public injuries, whilst a soon to be announced Bio marker blood test will at last absolutely prove human exposure beyond any reasonable doubt:
- Carbon Monoxide – CO (Deadly gas) is generated by jet engine heat and causes both acute & chronic ill health symptoms.
2) Organophosphates OP (Deadly nerve agents) which are added as jet engine anti-wear agents at 3-5% in jet engine oil causes chronic ill health symptoms.
However only OP is added to jet engine oil, CO gas is only generated by heat within the jet engine – CO cannot be added to the engine oil, as OPs are added.
The new Bio marker test is for OPs ONLY not CO, which are added to jet engine oil which are filtered out by human lungs and then find their way into human blood.
The above evidence has been argued over tirelessly for decades with many vested interests denying that OPs can even be present in jets or poisonous. But it has been known for decades that only tiny doses of OPs are required to poison around 20% of vulnerable people whose livers cannot detoxify OPs, as with the sheep-dip farmers.
Recently, it has been realized that CO is present most of the time in unmonitored and unfiltered Bleed Air, and as CO is an odorless, colorless and invisible deadly gas in tiny doses – CO causes much greater harm, especially with the acute ill health of flyers, but when CO is mixed with OPs and many other toxic chemicals – is even deadlier as a mixture.
Whether it is CO or OP does not matter in the slightest to anyone who has been poisoned whilst flying in a jet – who only wishes to be well again and not poisoned – they do not care exactly which poison, is making them feel acutely or chronically sick…
For any new virgin, non-flyer to have an OP Bio marker blood test with no contaminants in at all is a BASE BLOOD TEST (BBT) and anyone considering going flying in a jet should have a BBT in advance of flying as it will be definitive evidence and proof of possible OP contamination in the future.
Following an oil ‘Fume event’, where visible oil fumes have been breathed in by both aircrew or passengers – all that is needed is an available Bio marker blood test for OPs – to absolutely prove past exposure.
CO exposure may also be tested for even further proof. This is especially true of many sick jet passengers who all have the same or similar results as previously happened on Flight XLA 120 on 1st February 2007 when 40 UK passengers including Ms Samantha Sabatino were made chronically sick from a single transatlantic flight and appeared in a BBC Panorama ‘Something in the air’ in 2008.
This new Bio marker OP blood test and updated 2009 Medical Protocol will be announced at the 18th annual Cabin Air conference on 29 June 2023: https://www.aircraftcabinair.com/schedule
15:25-15:50 (London Time UTC + 1)
Have You Been Exposed to Aircraft Engine Oil? – Biomarkers of Exposure
Professor Clement Furlong
Professor of Medicine and Genome Sciences
University of Washington
And
17:06-17:41 (London Time UTC + 1)
Aircraft fume events: A narrative review and medical protocol for the investigation of aircrew and passengers exposed to aircraft contaminated air and the health consequences of exposure.
Practical guideline prepared by the International Fume Events Task Force
Professor Vyvyan Howard
FRCPath
Centre for Molecular Biosciences
University of Ulster
Countless flyers, both aircrew & passengers have been made very seriously ill following oil fume event exposures since 1950’s, but a recent message from a UK Low cost airline male pilot to the Aerotoxic Association sums up the present situation in his own words:
I am a commercial pilot who recently had a fumes event whose source has been confirmed as an oil leak from the APU. At the time we smelt the sweaty socks smell and within a minute I felt symptoms (tingling hands and mild confusion). The day after I began experiencing mild headaches which I rarely experienced prior to the event. As a result I went to A&E and told them what had happened. They took my bloods and did a standard blood gas and confirmed I was fine. Can I ask what you advise I do from here? I live in the UK, should I go to my GP and explain what happened? I am just concerned they do not have a protocol for this type of thing and therefore would spend a long time looking for the wrong thing. Perhaps you can advise of a private service I can use to get the necessary testing done? Secondly is there anything in the time being I can do to detoxify myself?
Any advice you can offer I would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks, RS
The new Bio marker blood test for OPs has been waited for, for over 20 years – this new OP based blood test will be the beginning of the end of the known design flaw of using unmonitored, unfiltered ‘bleed air’ for human consumption.
This young, 30-year-old low cost airline pilot should be first tested for vulnerability to OPs and if positive, he should never fly in any jet again or else he will get sicker and sicker from repeated OP/CO exposures in unmonitored oil fumes, in a confined space over time like countless other aircrew from all over the world.
Secondly, he should now have an available ‘base level’ bio marker test along with the rest of the population to record a BASE LEVEL and if further exposed – another differentiator Bio marker blood test which will indicate whether or not he has more OPs in his blood than the earlier base test.
Thirdly, CO may also be tested as his acute illness symptoms whilst in the jet will have been caused by the CO in the oil fumes.
Prompt treatment with Oxygen is generally the best action for First Aiders.
Captain Hoyte remarked: “I first became aware of the well-known and published in 1999 dangers of repeated exposures to toxic cabin air from jet aircraft in early 2006 – therefore I am relieved that after 17 long years international scientists have at last been able to announce a Bio marker blood test to show exposure to toxic oil fumes from bleed air jets in flyers. I can get on with publishing more books about my story and my uniquely different Simulator Flying business and I can at last return to a more normal life in Warwickshire, UK.”
For further information contact: Captain John Hoyte
Former BAe 146 Training Captain
Aerotoxic Association Ltd (2007)
Aerotoxic Solutions Consultancy Ltd (2021)
Email: john.hoyte@aerotoxic.org +44(0)7773771867
More evidence at:
www.aerotoxic.org
XLA 120 includes BBC Panorama film ‘Something in the air’ and other Cabin Air documentaries from 2007: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dsDznr4z5w
Global Cabin Air Quality Executive (2006): www.gcaqe.org
The Netherlands: www.flyaware.nl/en/stichting-fly-aware-2
Germany: www.p-coc.com
Switzerland: www.unfiltered.vip
France: www.syndrome-aerotoxique.com
Germany: www.bleedfree.eu
Angel Fleet, UK: www.angelfleet.uk
The Daily Telegraph – Christopher Booker’s notebook
By Christopher Booker
12:01AM BST 24 Jun 2007
Pilots disabled by poisoned air
A few years back Susan Michaelis, Tristan Loraine and John Hoyte were successful airline pilots, earning up to £100,000 a year. Last Monday, with health and livelihood destroyed, they joined forces with some 20 other similarly disabled pilots, to launch a campaign to alert the public to what should be seen as one of the most alarming scandals of our time.
Yet two days later came further evidence of how the regulatory authorities, in alliance with the airline industry itself, have stopped at nothing to cover up a health disaster whose financial costs for the industry could run to many billions.
The essence of the problem is that the air supply to the cockpits and cabins of many modern airliners is bled off from their engines, where it becomes contaminated with carcinogens, immunosuppressants and highly toxic organo-phosphorus (OP) chemicals, especially a compound known as tricresyl phosphate (TCP) used as an anti-wear additive. Both crew and passengers are thus exposed to small amounts of OPs and a cocktail of other nasties. OPs, more commonly used as pesticides, cumulatively attack the nervous system, causing disorders ranging from nausea, headaches and dizziness to, eventually, serious mental and physical breakdown.
Although this problem was first identified 30 years ago, following a near-fatal incident in the US, it was kept so quiet that when hundreds of pilots in the 1980s began to experience adverse reactions they had no idea why. One of the first to track down the cause was Susan Michaelis, flying BA146s in Australia, when in 1997 she was permanently grounded by severe illness. Two years later, at her instigation, an official inquiry by the Australian Senate heard enough expert evidence to confirm that the cause of so many pilots and cabin crew suffering ill-health was contamination of cabin air by TCP and other chemicals.
In 2001 the cause was taken up in Britain by Captain Loraine, a senior member of the British Air Line Pilots Association (BALPA), who flew Boeing 757s. But from the industry and regulators, such as the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), they met with a wall of denials. Although more pilots were suffering from “aerotoxic syndrome” every year, there began a cover-up which uncannily parallelled the methods used by government in the 1990s when the health of thousands of farmers was destroyed by OPs in sheep dip.
Ironically, in 2005, just after he had organised a BALPA conference of leading scientists and other experts from all over the world, Captain Loraine himself became seriously affected. Initially doctors for his airline saw no reason why he should not continue flying, but in 2006, following further exposure to contaminated air, he was permanently grounded by the CAA.
The career of Captain Hoyte, an experienced BA146 pilot, ended the same year for the same reason, although he was repeatedly told by doctors for his airline and the CAA that his only problem was “stress”.
Tests run on both pilots by the leading medical experts on OP poisoning, including Professor Mohamed Abou-Donia, of Duke University, North Carolina, and neuropsychologist Dr Sarah Mackenzie-Ross of University College, London, confirmed brain cell death, cognitive problems and exposure to TCP, explaining why both had become textbook cases of OP-induced chronic neurotoxicity.
Dr Mackenzie-Ross, who since 2003 has been carrying out an extensive study of sheep farmers and airline pilots, has estimated that, in 2004, 197,000 airline passengers in Britain alone could have been exposed to contaminated fumes. The evidence suggests that a great many people have been made ill while flying without having any idea why. One of the scientists studying this problem, Professor Chris van Netten, a Canadian epidemiologist, has analysed swabs taken from many different airliners, finding traces of TCP in more than 80 per cent of the aircraft tested.
Yet, despite the overwhelming weight of evidence, the regulators and the industry have continued to deny that the TCP problem exists. For three years now, as with the sheep farmers before, the British Government has relied on its Committee on Toxicity (CoT) to conduct a seemingly interminable investigation into “cabin air quality”, marked by a conspicuous reluctance to address the problem of TCP.
Last week, Michaelis, Loraine and Hoyte joined forces at Portcullis House, Westminster, to launch the Aerotoxic Association, backed by 110 MPs and many peers, including those veterans of the battle to expose the scandal of OP poisoning, the Countess of Mar and Lord (Paul) Tyler.
On Wednesday, however, the CoT produced the minutes of yet another of its meetings. As official obfuscation, they were almost self-parodic. They referred to BALPA submitting “data relating to organo-phosphates”, but this was the only reference to OPs in the document. The remaining 20 pages, dealing with anything from carbon monoxide to the need to review pilot training procedures, showed that the committee had no interest in whether airline crews and passengers were being poisoned by TCP from engine oil. It is high time this particular cover-up was blown wide open.
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