In flight, every crew member and passenger relies on an air supply. The assumption, of course, is that this air is filtered if not fresh. Perhaps you have sensed (and promptly dismissed) that there may be quality control issues around cabin air. The problem goes further than that, however, and astoundingly, this is not by accident but by design.
What’s more concerning is the fact that the industry has known about this completely preventable health hazard for at least 40 years, but no attempts have been made to filter this cocktail of hundreds of chemicals (including organophosphates in the same category as toxic nerve agents like Sarin) out of the cabin air before travelers are forced to breath them in. Nor has the root cause of the problem — unsafe aircraft design and the deprioritization of human safety — been effectively addressed.
Essentially, the problem comes from the need to supply the jet airliners with warm compressed air while flying at high altitudes. In order to do so, all planes used by commercial airlines since 1963 inject the cabin with air directly from the compressors of their jet engines in what is known as ‘bleed air.’ In the 50’s, engineers designed airplanes which pulled fresh air into the cabin, but this “modification” was deemed too costly by decision-makers at the time. As a result of poor design, every breath that the crew and passengers take today, consists of a 50/50 mix of recirculated cabin air and bleed air, the latter of which can contains a wide range of synthetic chemicals, such as tricresyl phosphate (TCP or TOCP), an organophosphate which is highly neurotoxic to humans. In fact, the World Health Organisation stated in 1990 that “Because of considerable variation among individuals in sensitivity to TOCP, it is not possible to establish a safe level of exposure” and “TOCP are therefore considered major hazards to human health." Full story...
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What’s more concerning is the fact that the industry has known about this completely preventable health hazard for at least 40 years, but no attempts have been made to filter this cocktail of hundreds of chemicals (including organophosphates in the same category as toxic nerve agents like Sarin) out of the cabin air before travelers are forced to breath them in. Nor has the root cause of the problem — unsafe aircraft design and the deprioritization of human safety — been effectively addressed.
Essentially, the problem comes from the need to supply the jet airliners with warm compressed air while flying at high altitudes. In order to do so, all planes used by commercial airlines since 1963 inject the cabin with air directly from the compressors of their jet engines in what is known as ‘bleed air.’ In the 50’s, engineers designed airplanes which pulled fresh air into the cabin, but this “modification” was deemed too costly by decision-makers at the time. As a result of poor design, every breath that the crew and passengers take today, consists of a 50/50 mix of recirculated cabin air and bleed air, the latter of which can contains a wide range of synthetic chemicals, such as tricresyl phosphate (TCP or TOCP), an organophosphate which is highly neurotoxic to humans. In fact, the World Health Organisation stated in 1990 that “Because of considerable variation among individuals in sensitivity to TOCP, it is not possible to establish a safe level of exposure” and “TOCP are therefore considered major hazards to human health." Full story...
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