Travel bad for your health?

[markis10]

Just been listening to a report on the ABC about superbugs and their drug resistance, one expert (whose name I missed) mentioned travel was an issue, with a study a few years back showing 50% of overseas travelers came back with a new superbug !

It does make you wonder.

I will post a link to the story as soon as its published online.

 

[markis10]

Link to the story:

The World Today - Concern at lack of new drugs for antibiotic resistant infections 01/05/2014

 

[Cruiser Elite]

Was always amazed how I could do 10 trips to China each year and come back with flu / virus every trip over a 6 or 7 year stint - last 12mths NADA touch wood.

But did have this very convo with a German GP friend of mine who is based in Beijing when we caught up a month ago - he was asking about my flu frequency as he had heard of European friends who were experiencing same phenomena - ie no flus / viruses lately - go figure.

He was also alluding to the looming problems with super bugs - hopefully solutions will be found.

FWIW cannot remember much about tail end of convo - RMB25 Crownies in The Den will do that sort of thing to you.

 

[JohnK]

Travel is great for my health.

Just stay away from the ice!

 

[kelvedon]

Flying in a jet aircraft is not good for your health as it increases the exposure to radiation. It follows that frequent flying would have an undesirably accumulative effect on the radiation exposure. The article linked below claims that a 6 hour flight gives an equivalent exposure to radiation as a chest X-ray.

Flight risk: how much radiation do planes expose you to?

I wonder if a P1 FF cards glow in the dark?

 

[JessicaTam]

I need to fly at the pointy end more often so I am exposed to fewer infected people.

 

[tuapekastar]

I returned on Monday from SIN (and a brief side trip to HKG) with no superbug, but coughing and spluttering nevertheless, and it has got worse since. Quite sure I picked it up in SIN rather than in flight. Don't have any particular history of bringing back bugs but the thought is sobering.

 

[AviatorPJ]

I need to fly at the pointy end more often so I am exposed to fewer infected people.

Overall, a relatively sound strategy but risk of infection also depends on the duration of the flight and the infectivity (how infectious) of the case.
see below: Predicting the potential for within-flight transmission and global dissemination of MERS : The Lancet Infectious Diseases
cheers, PJ

 

[Hvr]

Actually living is dangerous. So far everybody alive is guaranteed to die.

Best we can hope for is to die quickly and without pain.

 

[JohnK]

Actually living is dangerous. So far everybody alive is guaranteed to die.

That is not quite true.

We can assume that everyone alive today is going to die but we don't know what they will discover tomorrow. The fountain of youth?

 

[medhead]

Flying in a jet aircraft is not good for your health as it increases the exposure to radiation. It follows that frequent flying would have an undesirably accumulative effect on the radiation exposure. The article linked below claims that a 6 hour flight gives an equivalent exposure to radiation as a chest X-ray.

Flight risk: how much radiation do planes expose you to?

I wonder if a P1 FF cards glow in the dark?

Glow in the dark? That's a laugh. A chest X-Ray has basically zero effect.

 

[medhead]

Actually living is dangerous. So far everybody alive is guaranteed to die.

Best we can hope for is to die quickly and without pain.

Exactly. The greatest cause of death is birth.

 

[AviatorPJ]

10 years ago some airline passengers received their death sentence, in-flight.
(NEJM= New England Journal of Medicine).

 

[drron]

A serious story but a little light on facts.
Based on 100 people travelling from Canberra who did not have a superbug before travel but did after.
First Canberra is not representative of even all Australians.
Second may have picked it up transitting SYD or MEL.
And third does not say whether any of those had a clinical disease.

 

[marki]

Flying in a jet aircraft is not good for your health as it increases the exposure to radiation. It follows that frequent flying would have an undesirably accumulative effect on the radiation exposure. The article linked below claims that a 6 hour flight gives an equivalent exposure to radiation as a chest X-ray.

Flight risk: how much radiation do planes expose you to?

I wonder if a P1 FF cards glow in the dark?

Even sleeping next to someone while living next to a coal power plant and eating a banana is not good. But what trumps it is living in a brick house gives you way more exposure than a single flight NY to LHR.

 

[drron]

Flying in a jet aircraft is not good for your health as it increases the exposure to radiation. It follows that frequent flying would have an undesirably accumulative effect on the radiation exposure. The article linked below claims that a 6 hour flight gives an equivalent exposure to radiation as a chest X-ray.

Flight risk: how much radiation do planes expose you to?

I wonder if a P1 FF cards glow in the dark?

The typical OMG it's radiation so it must be bad line.
More people die from the fear of radiation than the radiation itself.
Take Chernobyl.It is estimated of the 600,000 most exposed that is the cleanup workers and those who were living in the exclusion zone that at most 4000 will die of a radiation induced disease-remember that is 4000 of 600000 deaths.
Yet suicide rates in Europe spiked after the event and there was an increase of ~250000 abortions in Europe in the year afterwards.
The background radiation rate in Pripyat in 2001 was 50% lower than that in Australia yet you still have shows such as 60 minutes and Top gear saying how dangerous it is to go there and you do need a special permit.Pripyat was the closest town to Chernobyl.

Then you have the disgraceful Helen Caldicott on 60 minutes saying that the IOC are criminal in awarding the Olympics to Tokyo.3 weeks after Fukushima the background levels of radiation in Tokyo were less than that of Australia and 15% of that in Cornwall,UK.

The spectre of congenital malformations after radiation exposure is always mentioned.As yet none have been recorded in the children of survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
And there is evidence that a single dose of low level ionising radiation is not all bad as with figure 3 of this report-
http://radiationhormesis.com/Radiat... radiation effects and radiation hormesis.pdf

http://www.ansto.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/45314/Ionising_Rad_broch_lr.pdf
Chernobyl Accident: Health Impacts
Hong Kong, Cornwall Radiation Beats Tokyo Even After Japan Nuclear Crisis - Bloomberg

http://rerf.or.jp/rerfrad_e.pdf
http://rerf.or.jp/fukushima_e.html

 

[markis10]

A serious story but a little light on facts.
Based on 100 people travelling from Canberra who did not have a superbug before travel but did after.
First Canberra is not representative of even all Australians.
Second may have picked it up transitting SYD or MEL.
And third does not say whether any of those had a clinical disease.

Thanks for digging up the facts!

 

[medhead]

The typical OMG it's radiation so it must be bad line.
More people die from the fear of radiation than the radiation itself.
Take Chernobyl.It is estimated of the 600,000 most exposed that is the cleanup workers and those who were living in the exclusion zone that at most 4000 will die of a radiation induced disease-remember that is 4000 of 600000 deaths.
Yet suicide rates in Europe spiked after the event and there was an increase of ~250000 abortions in Europe in the year afterwards.
The background radiation rate in Pripyat in 2001 was 50% lower than that in Australia yet you still have shows such as 60 minutes and Top gear saying how dangerous it is to go there and you do need a special permit.Pripyat was the closest town to Chernobyl.

Then you have the disgraceful Helen Caldicott on 60 minutes saying that the IOC are criminal in awarding the Olympics to Tokyo.3 weeks after Fukushima the background levels of radiation in Tokyo were less than that of Australia and 15% of that in Cornwall,UK.

The spectre of congenital malformations after radiation exposure is always mentioned.As yet none have been recorded in the children of survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
And there is evidence that a single dose of low level ionising radiation is not all bad as with figure 3 of this report-
http://radiationhormesis.com/Radiat... radiation effects and radiation hormesis.pdf

http://www.ansto.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/45314/Ionising_Rad_broch_lr.pdf
Chernobyl Accident: Health Impacts
Hong Kong, Cornwall Radiation Beats Tokyo Even After Japan Nuclear Crisis - Bloomberg

http://rerf.or.jp/rerfrad_e.pdf
http://rerf.or.jp/fukushima_e.html

Heritable genetic effects is one of the areas that even international recommendations are acknowledging they just don't exist. That's saying something considering the way those same recommendations most ignore evidence of things like radiation hormesis or even a radiation dose threshold. Heritable genetic effects only remain because they have been observed in mice or rats and hence must be theoretically possible in other mammals.

 

[JessicaTam]

Overall, a relatively sound strategy but risk of infection also depends on the duration of the flight and the infectivity (how infectious) of the case.
see below: Predicting the potential for within-flight transmission and global dissemination of MERS : The Lancet Infectious Diseases
cheers, PJ

I will continue to strive towrds the pointy end nonetheless, so at least I will be exposed to a better class of disease.

 

[marki]

I will continue to strive towrds the pointy end nonetheless, so at least I will be exposed to a better class of disease.

Be careful what you wish for sometimes the pointy end has all the hassles. Some of the flights I have been on the sick people have been moved from economy to business. Because there is so much more room for them to lie down. Then when such a person has vomiting and diarrhoea in the front section near the toilets it gets wet everywhere and the carpet becomes soaked and the toilet becomes blocked due to big yellow tape with quarantine written on it.

I remember distinctly having the forward class breakfast being prepared next to such an environment.

Be careful.....I remember passengers walking in their pj's and socks on the diarrhoea vomit soaked carpet ( floor) wondering what the heck that was afterwards.

It' not pretty ...... As some did not know what had happened. They went with those socks back to their seat.

Ok ..... It sucks being sick on aircraft. Can it be prevented? Unlikely ....


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