Flying for Swine Flu

The New York Times Week in Review yesterday dedicated its back page to preparations for a swine flu or H1N1 epidemic. And as one might expect, the airlines are not doing what they need to do to make sure that cabins, the air in the cabins, and the habits of crew and passengers will not be a major conduit, anymore than airplanes currently are, for the spread of the illness.

This past spring every time I flew, I got bronchitis, because someone near me was coughing or sneezing, and the air quality in planes now is treacherously bad. And I am a handwashing maniac, too.

Mark Gendreau, the vice chairman of emergency medicine at the Lahey Clinic and an assistant professor of emergency medicine at Tufts University, wrote a scathing critique of just how badly the airlines are doing when it comes to avoiding the spread of swine flu, and for that matter, all contagious diseases. Read Fly the Germ-Free Skies.

According to Dr. Gendreau, the airlines should be training its cabin attendants to help passengers maintain a level of hygiene, like distributing hand sanitizers, and the airlines themselves should be upgrading the quality of air filtration in their planes. But with the economy in the pits, and airlines worried about the bottom line, it's unlikely that they will respond to this call for action. And since passengers have to avoid carrying liquids on board, we should at least be carrying wipes to make sure that we keep ourselves as germ-free as possible especially before we eat our peanuts and drink our coffee.

In a related article, Arthur Allen, author of “Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine’s Greatest Lifesaver,” speaks about the government's responsibility to alert us about the dangers of any new flu vaccine, and distinguishes between correlation and cause, especially when people get sick from taking a vaccine. Read "Prepare for a Vaccine Controversy."