Accusations are running from various pressure groups that toxic fumes are leaking into aircraft cabins on all commercial flights. If the accusation ends up a fact, it is very likely that millions of passengers who travel by flights will face health problems varying from headaches to nausea.

Global Cabin Air Quality pressure group claims that the cabin air that passengers and crew members breathe onboard is drawn from the main engine. The air is filtered which gets rid of bacteria but there have been evidences of oil vapours in the air. Oil vapours inside the cabin can be attributed to faulty seals in the engine.

The UK government has acknowledged that such leaks take place and the probability is 1 in every 2000. But pressure groups insist that such leaks take place on most flights.

Presence of oil vapours causes nausea, dizziness and lethargy along with symptoms of varying health problems.

The government has budged to the demand and has ordered the department of transport to collect samples of air from flights and analyze them for toxic substances. Sometimes, pressure groups do help, huh!

It has been researched that an average Brit has helped in creating around 650 kilograms of carbon-di-oxide (CO2) over three days around Christmas this year. The carbon emissions were helped by massive travelling undertaken along with tons of food wastes.

Researchers from York University’s Stockholm Institute conducted a detailed study based on inputs from airline bookings, groceries sold and other items that could contribute towards emitting carbon.

The entire UK community has been estimated to have travelled around 3 billion miles during Christmas for various reasons. So, on an average, every Brit would have travelled 121 miles during Christmas; that’s a lot of travelling. And, this is only UK we are talking about; imagine the intensity for the entire Christmas celebrating folks in other parts of the world.

While travel has contributed tons and heaps, food hasn’t left itself too much behind. The Christmas dinner alone has contributed to a mountain of waste which included peelings from 240 million sprouts, 105 million potatoes and 20 million carrots. Adding and calculating the law of averages from the mountain of waste, an average Brit has contributed to 26 kilograms of carbon over three days. It would make an interesting comparison on the carbon contribution scale for a regular meal.

All the pollution mentioned above is just for one dinner; I am afraid to extrapolate it for the holiday season. We humans pollute our atmosphere in almost everything we do. Gosh!

via BBC

Speculations are rife that people who are suffering from disease related to the lungs shouldn’t travel by flights to avoid complications. A research based on a survey is out to prove those hardliners wrong.

British researchers have conducted a research with a sample size exceeding 500 patients who had travelled by air. The study was based on patients recruited from 37 respiratory medicine clinics in the UK.

All the patients under study were evaluated by a lung specialist before their flight. 11% of the patients cancelled flights as their doctor advised against it. Some had to carry supplemental oxygen cylinders and this prompted them to cancel flights and in some cases, the airliner rejected oxygen cylinders on board.

18% suffered from symptoms such as shortness of breath, coughing and chest pain.

The symptoms experienced on board were moderate and didn’t require emergency landing or serious incidents.

The doctors have concluded that patients carrying lung disease shouldn’t prohibit themselves from flying. There is no proof that the lung ailment have increased due to air travel; however, patients are advised to meet with a specialist to take precautionary measures.

via One News

An expert has stated in this month’s BMJ that UK travellers are highly susceptible to the Hepatitis B infection. The reason he states, is the lack of regularisation by the authorities to introduce a mandatory immunisation during birth.

UK is one of the very few developed countries in the world who haven’t introduced Hepatitis B immunisation during the infant stage. A global call from WHO to have the vaccination done has been ignored since 1997.

The reason behind non-immunisation is attributed to a number of cases of the disease in the country when compared with others.

In the past year, a total of around 1,80,000 cases were reported. It was also reported that 24% of travellers to a hepatitis B endemic country were contracted with the disease. Here’s a small stat that should throw more light on the reason for getting affected: 8% of UK travellers had sex with a person they met in that country (Zuckerman 2006). These figures should be sufficient for the government to introduce mandatory vaccination for the disease.

It is common these days for people to travel outside UK to take part in adventure holidays or contact sports, which increases the chance of them requiring medical treatment if hurt; which in turn could expose them to the infection. Medical facilities in developing nations are usually poor and treatments with sterlised equipments are usually unheard of. This could put the traveller at a significant risk. A dosage of the vaccination could just be the saving grace that one could be looking for.

Hope that the authorities would wake up soon.

In a bi-yearly test conducted by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs(Defra), most of the beaches in England have been deemed as suitable for bathing. There was a concern that a good part of beaches would be unusable for bathing purpose after UK recorded one of the wettest summers in years.

In England, there are 414 bathing sites according to the agency. Only 9 have failed to live up to the mandatory quality of water. The failed ones include Staithes, Sandsend and Runswick Bay in North Yorkshire, Morecambe South and St Anne’s in Lancashire, Bude Summerleaze in Cornwall and Instow and Mothecombe in Devon.

In the year 2005, 99.5% of the beaches had passed the mandatory quality required compared to this year’s 97.8%. Defra feels that the downslide in quality of water in bathing sites is due to perennial rainfall during summer. Environment minister Phil Woolas has stated that the present water quality is far better than it used to be 15 years back.

To improve the quality of water, measures need to be taken to upgrade the sewerage infrastructure and find a solution to avert water pollution from farming and urban sources.

Meanwhile, water quality standards are likely to be tightened by 2015.

via BBC

There is no direct correlation between cancer and the technology behind the airlines that fly for a cheap price. Cheap flights are providing more touring opportunities for tourists in the UK to warmer places around the globe. More and more people are jumping on the bandwagon and flying to beaches to get the feel of the blazing sun. It has been found that exposure of large areas of flesh to the midday sun increases the chances of contracting skin cancer called malignant melanoma.

Melanoma often starts at the site of a mole and can be treated if caught early. But it is the most aggressive of the skin cancers, causing about 1,800 deaths a year. In 2004 there were 8,939 new diagnoses, up from 5,783 in 1995.

The rise mirrors that in foreign travel, up by 48 per cent between 1997 and 2006 according to the Association of British Travel Agents, with 68 million trips abroad taken last year compared with 46 million in 1997.

Foreign travel has been singled out for the rise of skin cancer. People are often keen to get a good tan and expose their bodies to sun. The development of cancer can take anywhere between 8 to 30 years. Youngsters are prone to getting cancer as their skin is vulnerable and lack the fighting capabilities. Sunburn, rather than gentle tanning has the highest risk of cancer. Kids who are over exposed to sun are likely to see the effects of cancer in their forties.

It looks like travelling too much could be dangerous as well. But, with better protection and limited amount of tanning could still lead to a safe and enjoyable holiday. There is a lot more to do other than tanning on the beach.

via The Independent