A Breath of Fresh Air
June 2nd, 2008 at 10:35 pm by Eric Halvorson under Eric Halvorson's Blog
The British Government should get in touch with the University of Massachusetts.
Last week, CBS News presented a story reporting British concerns about passenger jets – specifically that “cabin air could be making you ill.” So, CBS said British researchers would be booked on 100 flights to sample air quality in such planes.
The University of Massachusetts has already done such research. This project sampled air in 12 commercial aircraft “and found that flying may be safer than generally thought.” The investigators said they did find “elevated levels of bacteria at several intervals during the flight” but such bacteria is already common to the human body and outdoor air. And, while boarding and deplaning stirs up bacteria and microbes, “bacterial concentrations and types found during the study should not pose a risk to travelers.”
The UMass study did suggest a need for more research, though, because people in “commercial airliners are exposed to higher levels of common bacteria than people in office buildings”.
