If not, you may want to reconsider.
A recent article in the Telegraph Travel with contribution from Fleet Street Clinic’s medical director, Dr Richard Dawood, has highlighted a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Dermatology. It reports that pilots flying for about 56 minutes at 30,000 feet were exposed to the same amount of carcinogenic UVA radiation as one would receive 20-minute session on a tanning bed.
The plane’s windshield blocked only about half of the UVA rays, dangerous enough to contribute to cancer risk.
However, applying this potential risk to all types of aircraft and to the cabin space outside the cockpit is “a bit speculative”, notes Dr Dawood. The aforementioned study was based on UV radiation measured from the cockpit of a Socata TBM850, a single turbo-prop private plane.
“Awareness of the issue is a good thing – especially for pilots; and for passengers, sensible use of window shades to avoid strong direct sunlight, which most people probably do anyway,”
– says Dr Richard Dawood.
For more travel advice, contact our expert travel team at Fleet Street Clinic – you can book an appointment online.
How many times have you come down with an illness after taking a flight? Are you concerned about germs when flying? If so, you may (or may not!) want to read the findings of a study showing how infections spread on planes.
The Telegraph reported the study with advice from Fleet Street Clinic’s medical director, Dr Richard Dawood.
Essentially, where you sit in relation to sick passengers and cabin crew will determine your chances of catching an infection.
It’s not all bad for passengers though, as cabin crew were reported more likely to infect one another than passengers. To avoid catching anything, make sure you wash their hands and avoid touching your face throughout the flight. If you feel ill yourself, make sure you keep your hands clean, avert your face when you cough and turn on the air to reduce the spread of bugs.
Dr Richard Dawood said airlines should not allow anyone to travel who was obviously ill.
“It’s a contravention of airline regulations for someone who’s showing overt signs of infection to be allowed to travel in the first place,”
– he said.He said the best way travellers could protect themselves was by asking someone to wear a face mask.
“The ideal thing to do would be to get the person who’s ill to wear a face mask. You could escalate it to captain level and say, here’s a person who’s a danger to other passengers and they should wear a face mask. However, you could end up with a pretty nasty incident if someone digs in their heels,”
– he said.
You can read the full article here.
For travel advice, you can book a travel consultation appointment here. Or you can learn more about our travel clinic.
