My guest today is Dee Passon, founder of the website Toxic Free Airlines. Dee was a Cabin Service Service Director for British Airways, and flew for nearly 25 years with four different airlines, until she was ill health retired in 2009 with a written diagnosis of Aerotoxic Syndrome. Dee now works as an unpaid advisor to passengers and crew affected by cabin air. In addition to her website, Dee also has a Toxic Free Airlines page on Facebook that posts the latest information and also set up a group on Facebook called Angel Fleet to pay tribute to and raise awareness of the number of British Airways crew who are passing away every year. In June 2014, Dee became a member of the Air Safety Group, an independent, unpaid and impartial group dedicated to improving all aspects of safety in aviation which reports to Parliament every year. www.toxicfreeairlines.com
TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
Aerotoxic Syndrome: How Flying in Airplanes Can Affect Your Health
Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Dee Passon
Date of Broadcast: July 21, 2015
DEBRA: Hi! I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world and live toxic free.
It is Tuesday, July 21st, 2015. I’m here in Clearwater, Florida and I don’t think we’re going to have a thunderstorm during the show. I think we’ll be just fine, but we’ll probably have one later on today. We’re having thunderstorms every day now here.
Anyway, today we’re going to be talking about something we’ve never talked about before on the show. Indeed, I suspected that this was a toxic problem, but didn’t know anybody was talking about until recently. The subject is toxic chemicals on airplane flights, what you’re being exposed to and how it’s affecting your health, but perhaps more importantly how it’s affecting all the stewardesses and pilots and people who are flying on planes every day. There’s actually a term now for the health effects that happen to this airline workers. It’s called Aerotoxic Syndrome.
My guest today is founder of the website, Toxic Free Airlines. That’s at ToxicFreeAirlines.com. She has information there about health effects that happen when people fly in airplanes, especially frequently and what you can do to be safer. That’s what we’re going to be talking about on the show today.
She has had her own experience in being made ill from the toxic chemicals on airplanes. She was a former Cabin Service Director for British Airways. She flew for nearly 25 years with four different airlines until she was “ill health retired” in 2009 with a written diagnosis of Aerotoxic Syndrome. So without further ado, hi Dee.
DEE PASSON: Hello Debra.
DEBRA: Hello. I just want to tell the listeners that we’re talking to Dee from the United Kingdom. So it’s a very long distance call.
DEE PASSON: Sorry. Am I sounding a bit faint?
DEBRA: If you could talk into the phone and talk up a little bit, that would be great.
DEE PASSON: Okay, I’ll try my best.
DEBRA: That’s better. That’s better. So anyway, why don’t you start off by us your story? What happened?
DEE PASSON: Like you, I haven’t heard of Aerotoxic Syndrome, but I kept getting lots and lots of things wrong with me and I was ill for many years. It was one thing after the other, constant flus and I was developing unexplained aches and pains, constant headaches. I didn’t know what was wrong. This went on for quite a long time.And then one day, I saw a headline in the newspaper over here that said, “Toxic Fuels in Jets.” Suddenly, it all made sense.
So I went and got myself tested. I had a very high level of toxins from the fume, from the engine oil and high levels of nickel, which comes from the engine. I’ve never heard this ever mentioned.
And then, once I started looking on the internet, I found that over here in Parliament, they’re discussing it in our House of Lords since 1999, but [inaudible 00:04:40]. And certainly passengers, most passengers still don’t know about this. They need to be warned that this could happen.
DEBRA: Do you think it’s because you and other flight attendants (and I’m assuming pilots and everybody who works on the planes) are being exposed to it more frequently than say me who doesn’t fly very often?
DEE PASSON: Yes, we are. We’re just getting chronic low level exposures. So every day, we’re getting a certain amount because the air we breathe in the cabin is completely unfiltered. But some people are more susceptible than others. So a passenger can get sick just for one flight. Some flights have more contamination than others. There are certainly a very high number of flight attendants and pilots that’s getting sick.
DEBRA: Tell us more about specifically what the chemical are that you’re being exposed to.
DEE PASSON: You’ve got all the chemicals from the fuel. You get things like hexane, heptane, methane, benzene. They’re carcinogens. And also, the organophosphates, which are the chemicals that are causing the most concern. I don’t know if you had a problem in America with farmers. Over here, our farmers actually dip their sheeps in organophosphate dips. And they’re all becoming very, very sick.
DEBRA: I didn’t know about that.
DEE PASSON: Oh, you don’t have that there. But you’ve got the Gulf War veterans?
DEBRA: Yes.
DEE PASSON: They were exposed to organophosphates. So it’s the same illness in fact. That’s why when you go on a flight, you get a feeling that you’ve got the flu. And everybody thinks they’ve got a virus, but actually, it’s chemical fume and it’s coming from the organophosphate. There’s organosphosphate in the hydraulics called tributyl phosphate. And there’s another one in the engine oil, the tricresyl phosphate.
Organophosphates were originally developed as nerve agents for warfare. So the governments and airlines are saying that they’re not harmful, that they’re not harming people. It’s complete rubbish. That’s what they were designed to do. They were designed to harm the human nervous system and that is exactly what they are doing.
DEBRA: I don’t even know what to ask you. It just seems incredulous to me. I mean, I’ve done a fair amount of flying in the past. I don’t even remember the last time I took a flight. It was probably across the United States, which is about 3000 miles to go from Florida to California. I know that when I’m on a plane, I can smell what I think is the jet fuel.
DEE PASSON: Yes.
DEBRA: The first thing I do when I get on the plane is – now I’m going to say this and you’re probably going to tell me that I’m doing exactly the wrong thing. But what I do is I get on the plane, I sit in my seat and I immediately open up the little air thing completely open so that I can get as much fresh air as possible.
DEE PASSON: Yeah, you don’t want the air that comes in. It’s unfiltered. So the airlines, in their little flight brochures, they’ll tell you the air is filtered. But it’s only the [inaudible 00:07:58]. All the air that you breathe comes off the engine and it’s unfiltered and it’s getting contaminated with all these chemicals. It’s only once the air has gone through the cabin and it gets recirculated that it then gets filtered.
So the sorts of symptoms you are likely to experience (nose irritation, eye irritation, cough, dizziness, vertigo, headache, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea), eventually, you’ll start to feel like you’ve got the flu, runny nose. Some people will also get tremors, which is the effect of having it on your nervous system. You’ll get chest pains, heart palpitations. Everybody gets everything.
Some people will get more major symptoms if they’re depressed or anxious. Obviously, they will have the physical ones. They’ll be in pain and they’re not working properly or they can’t walk after a flight. Other people will have heart attacks. These chemicals can make the brain swell, which is why you get these terrible headaches. It can cause brain hemorrhages. It can cause pneumonia. It’s really serious.
The reason why these things have been kept quiet is the airlines don’t want you to know about these problems because they’re not planning on fixing it. It will cost a lot of money.
DEBRA: But it just seems to me negligent to be exposing passengers to this. I mean, probably worse than negligent. I can’t think of the right word for it, irresponsible.
DEE PASSON: I know. It certainly is. It’s also illegal. The [inaudible 00:09:37] itself says that the passenger and crew compartments must be free from toxic fumes and vapors. That isn’t the case at the moment.
They keep saying fumes like those are rare. I got to see the reports from the UK and they’re happening every day. I don’t think something that happens every day is rare. And these are just the ones that are getting reported. There’s an awful lot that’s unreported. The average fume only lasts for less than a minute. So, by the time people have thought, “Have I smelt something or haven’t I?”, it’s gone, so they bother to report it.
And it affects your sense of smell, especially crews because they’re flying a long times. [Inaudible 00:10:20] I was told that the damage to my respiratory tract [inaudible 00:10:25]. You lose your sense of smell.
Some of the chemicals are odorless. The engine oil are odorless. But sometimes, it smells like sweaty feet. So then if you smell something, you don’t know what to do. Whoever will ever report that smell. [Inaudible 00:10:44] we just think passengers taking their shoes off.
DEBRA: I understand. We need to go to break, but when we come back, we’ll talk more with Dee about various toxic chemicals that you may encounter when you’re taking an airline flight and what to do about it.
You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Dee Passon. She is the founder of the website, Toxic Free Airlines, which is at ToxicFreeAirlines.com. We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and my guest today is Dee Passon. She is a former – what do you like to be called, a flight attendant?
DEE PASSON: We call it cabin crew in the UK, but flight attendant is fine. I don’t mind.
DEBRA: Cabin crew. I like cabin crew. I will call you in the UK term.
DEE PASSON: You can use that.
DEBRA: She is a former cabin crew member from British Airways who retired because she got sick from the toxic chemicals that she was being exposed to. We’ve been talking about that.
When I smell something, when I’m in a plane, there are definitely times when I smell quite strongly something that I think is fuel and it might be something else. But it seems to come and go. So I was really interested in you saying that these episodes are just so short that you’re not quite sure that you smelled something at all. I know that I smelled things and then it stops.
It never once occurred to me that I should report it because as a passenger – I guess even though I’m probably more aware of toxic chemicals in my environment than most people and I was aware it was going on, I just thought this is the way it is on a plane. I don’t know what the rules are for planes and I don’t like it, but I just thought this is just the way it is.
DEE PASSON: Yeah. But they’re not filtering that air at all. So on some flights, you will have a problem where you’ve got a thing in the engine that’s either worn or it’s got a hole in it. Then you’re going to get a very big contamination. And those are the flights where you might actually see the mists in the cabin although that’s quite rare. You will have other people possibly fainting or feeling unwell and you’ll hear the calls for doctors.
Even on ordinary flights, these fuels aren’t designed to fuel all the time. They’re kept in place by air pressure. They’re wet fuel. So you are going to get a certain amount of contamination. It’s a design flaw.
In 1962, the air used to be blown in from the outside. It didn’t go through the engine. But back then, they decided that they could save money by combining two. They thought, “Engines need warm air for propulsion and passengers need warm air to breathe, so let’s combine the two.” Unfortunately, it’s a flawed system and it’s not very good for people’s health.
The only aircraft currently flying that doesn’t use this system is the Boeing 787. That is the only aircraft that I would ever fly on now.
DEBRA: Do many airlines have that plane?
DEE PASSON: Yeah, more and more. At least Boeing had acknowledged the problem. They actually gave evidence to the British House of Lords and they originally said it was to prevent any possibility of cabin air contamination. And then, I think they realized after they shot themselves in the foot a little bit because they’ve still got lots of [inaudible 00:17:07] 767 planes, but they retracted that slightly. But that is the real reason.
But at least, we saw the Boeing 787 using a completely different system and the air doesn’t come through the engine. So you’re far less likely to have fumes in there.
DEBRA: That’s so good to know. That’s so good to know because that’s something that we can do.
DEE PASSON: Exactly! And if you have to fly on something else which personally I wouldn’t do. I wouldn’t risk it.
Seven years ago, I couldn’t even change channels with the remote control. I was so fundamentally confused. I didn’t know what day it was. I didn’t have the energy to even go and have a shower. So I’m very scared of going back to being like that again, so I just won’t fly.
DEBRA: When was the last time you’ve flied?
DEE PASSON: I have flown since I stopped flying as a cabin crew, but I take a mask with me now, one that’s designed to screen their oily mist. I haven’t gotten sick when I’ve used that.
But then, I haven’t been on [inaudible 00:18:17] is when you get a lot of fumes in the cabin. The problem with that is from the time the pilots realize there’s a problem, they’re actually getting you down on the ground and getting those doors open, it’s going to be about half an hour. And the pilots has got full face oxygen masks. The passengers has got nothing. So you really do need to take something with you.
DEBRA: Okay. So you need a mask that’s specific for oily mists. Where do you get such a thing? I mean, you don’t know where in America because you’re getting it in UK. But where do you get it in the UK? Maybe I can look at that.
DEE PASSON: Yeah. Actually you can look on the internet. I have got one called SSP3, which are the best. They do screen out chemicals as well as bacteria and viruses. There’s an association called the Aerotoxic Association. That was set up an ill health retired captain, [inaudible 00:19:15] Captain John Hoyte. He’s done so much to help people.
His website is Aerotoxic.org. He sells masks on there. And he’s also written a really, really good book. I’ve been researching this subject for the last seven to eight years, but there was still a lot in it that I didn’t know. The book is called Aerotoxic Syndrome: Aviation’s Darkest Secret. It’s really, really good. It’s worth reading before you fly.
DEBRA: Yeah. So when did the term Aerotoxic Syndrome come about?
DEE PASSON: That came about in 1999. There were three scientists. One of them was American, one was French and I believe the other one was Australian. They have been looking into this problem and they’ve heard about passengers and crews complaining of getting sick. They looked into this and they found that it was a very real big problem. They called it Aerotoxic Syndrome.
It’s called a syndrome because it affects multiple systems of the body. You don’t just come off with one thing. It’s going to depend on your own health as well.
If somebody had chemo and wants to fly somewhere nice and warm to recuperate, that can be really dangerous because they already have a lot of toxic chemicals in their bodies. People on certain medications are much more susceptible than others. [Inaudible 00:20:43]. If an awful lot of chemicals are already in your liver, then you’re going to be much more affected than somebody who goes for a run every day and excrete these toxins.
DEBRA: Yeah, that makes a big difference, how much you already have in your body. Here in America, that’s called body burden. Do you call it that in the UK?
DEE PASSON: No, I haven’t heard that term.
DEBRA: The Center for Disease Control here in the US started calling it body burden and so now that’s what it’s referred to. There are numbers and they track what is the average body burden of the citizens of America. It’s actually pretty high. There are reports that show.
We need to go to break. We’ll be right back. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Dee Passon from ToxicFreeAirlines.com. And we’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Dee Passon. She’s the founder of the website Toxic Free Airlines at ToxicFreeAirlines.com. She has spent more than 25 years flying with four different airlines until she retired because of ill health in 2009. And now, she helps people understand Aerotoxic Syndrome and helps people who have been affected by it and helps people prevent being affected by it as well.
You have on your Facebook page a group called Angel Fleet. Tell us about that.
DEE PASSON: Well, that came about when I was told if there was a problem, the company really would like to know about it. So I thought I’d find some practical figures then that I could tell them about. So I went through all the pictures that I could find online. They went back three years and I’ve discovered that a crew member has been dying every single month for the last two years.
DEBRA: That’s a lot.
DEE PASSON: Yeah, it was shocking. I sat up all night on my computer and got all these names and ages and dates. I compiled it into a list and I sent it to my company. I said, “There’s a crew member dying every month confronting a problem that you should be doing something about.” I didn’t get a reply to that letter unsurprisingly. They then terminated my contract very, very shortly afterward. So I do think the two were connected.
So I carried on compiling my list. It is very difficult to find out. This isn’t something that gets talked about very much. And then one day, somebody told me that the obituary board has disappeared as well. So now, nobody knew what was happening. I thought I think it’s time we have a place where we can actually remember these people and make sure that they aren’t forgotten and we found out just how often this is happening.
March of 2013, I haven’t got a clue how set up a group. I’m not very technically minded at all. But I sat at my laptop and I clicked on “Create Group.” I called it Angel Fleet because we’ve got the [inaudible 00:29:06]. And now we have the Angel Fleet as well.
Within seconds, I had people contact me and asking if they could help. And now, we’ve got over 7700 members. The list of the crew that has passed away, I’ve got over 500 names on it now. And that’s one airline in one country, which is tremendous.
So what we’re going to do now is we’re in the process of constructing a website. We want to invite all the other airlines in the world doing this. We will remember our former colleagues. We’ll also find out how often this is happening. We won’t let the airlines keep this quiet because they have to sort this problem out and not just keep pretending it doesn’t exist.
For a long time, they’ve all got away with lies basically. For a while, they said there weren’t any toxins [inaudible 00:30:06]. Even their own government tests have proved that all these organophosphate with toxic chemicals are there.
Then the next [inaudible 00:30:17] was there were no exposure standard. There’s a quote here from the World Health Organization and this is 25 years ago. In 1990, the World Health Organization said at least one of these chemicals, there’s one called tri-o-cresyl phosphate, there’s a considerable variation among individuals in sensitivity to TOCP. It is not possible to establish a safe level for exposure.”
So there are no exposure limits for these chemicals authentically. And even if they did exist, they would only apply to the workers. They wouldn’t apply to passengers. Passengers, especially pregnant women and children, the elderly and the sick, they must be exposed to nothing. The law says they must not be exposed to any toxic vapors or whatsoever. And so does the Airworthy Certification. If that isn’t happening, then the aircraft isn’t airworthy.
Passengers should be complaining because the airlines don’t really care what we’ve seen over the last few years. The airlines do not care how many of their crew died. They would replace them with younger and cheaper ones.
But what they will care about is if their passengers starts saying, “We’re not going to give you our money until you make that air safe.” That’s what we want to happen. We want passengers to complain to the airlines, to the FAAs, to their government representatives. I think some people, Senator [inaudible 00:31:45]. There was some law passed that the FAA is supposed to sort this out. So far, that hasn’t happened.
Another group on Facebook is called Aerotoxic Syndrome Voices. That’s run by an ill health retired American flight attendant. She keeps that updated as well. I’ve got mine on Facebook with Toxic Free Airlines. So between the two of us, there are lots of information. You’ll find out all the latest.
I mean we do have proof now. It isn’t just us claiming. There has been three post-mortems done on [inaudible 00:32:22] crew who recently passed away. All three were found to have information at the heart. [Inaudible 00:32:29] in all three, which is very, very concerning. So it’s a problem that we really do need to get sorted.
DEBRA: It absolutely is. And as I’m sitting here listening to you (and I listen to guests speak every day), as I’m listening to you, I just want to point out that what you’re talking about is people dying from exposure. That’s not usually what we talk about. What we talk about is people get headaches or cancer. All kinds of different symptoms can come from different chemicals. But you’re talking about documented evidence that people are dying from toxic chemical exposures in their occupation.
DEE PASSON: Yeah, they trusted their employer. They thought it was safe. And they’ve been really seriously let down.
The company I used to work for, they just had two deaths in the last week. Any other companies would get shut down. Any other building sites having these many deaths, something would be done about it. They wouldn’t just be pretending it isn’t happening.
They keep coming out with the same statement. We’ve seen [inaudible 00:33:47] in the cabin crew airways that would indicate a problem. We wouldn’t operate a flight if we believe it posed a health and safety risk. And no one is making them prove that. They’re just repeating these statements, but they’re not actually saying, “Show me. Show me how many crews you’ve got off sick today. Show me how many crews have died in the last 10 years.” They are absolutely keeping that secret. And this is one of the reasons the Angel Fleet. We’re now finding out.
Last year in just one company, there were 23 deaths of cabin crews and nearly 50 have retired. And some of them retired [inaudible 00:34:26] the ill health retired, the youngest was 39. And [inaudible 00:34:32], the youngest was 28. We’ve just lost a 23. This can’t go on.
This lie has to stop. Like I said, it’s people’s lives. They’re not just dying a few years early. They are dying decades before they retire.
DEBRA: Yeah. This is not right. This should not be happening. We need to go to break, but when we come back, we’ll talk more about this.
You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Dee Passon. She’s founder of the website, Toxic Free Airlines, which is at ToxicFreeAirlines.com. She also has a Facebook page where she has lots of updates including – I was just there during the last break – including an announcement of this radio show and other interviews that she has done. You can just go to Facebook and type in “Toxic Free Airlines” and the page will come right up. We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Dee Passon. She’s the founder of the website, Toxic Free Airlines, which is ToxicFreeAirlines.com. You can go there and find out more about what we’ve been talking about, which is about the toxic chemicals that are on airline flights that you may be exposed to and also what you can do about it.
We’re talking before the break that people shouldn’t be dying on the job, that they should have confidence that they can go to work, get paid and live a long and happy life and not die prematurely. Here in the United States, we have something called the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). It’s called OSHA. It has a lot of rules for what people can be exposed to on the job.
I think it only applies to people who are working with the chemicals and not necessarily the people who are working in offices and things like that. But I think that just morally and ethically, people should be provided with a healthy environment. I mean, we have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness here in the United States. I think you have something similar in England. It just makes sense that if you value the people who are working for you, you should provide them good health.
DEE PASSON: Absolutely, yeah. We have the similar regulations in the UK. They’re called the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health. Airlines are allowed to get away never doing these tests.
Anybody who knows that they’re working with chemicals, they have to do risk assessments and the work must be tested. If you know you’re working with organophosphate, then you’re tested regularly. I think it’s every month to see what your level of enzymes is in your liver.
None of that happens. I wrote to my airline and I said, “Can you tell me why you’ve never done a Control of Substances Hazardous to Health risk assessments.” And they said, “It’s because we’re not aware of any risks.” I said, “I think you’ll find this the wrong way around. You’re supposed to find out if there are any risks. You don’t justify that there aren’t any risks.”
DEBRA: Wait! This is an organization who’s supposed to be protecting you from hazards, they don’t know that there are associated with these chemicals? I mean, I am just a consumer. I am just an average citizen and I know there are risks associated with these chemicals and you know that. How come the agency that’s supposed to be protecting you doesn’t know that?
DEE PASSON: It’s because they don’t want to know. It’s the only enclosed environment that does not have chemical detectors. They’re saying that there isn’t the technology. Rubbish, we have chemical detectors on submarines in World War II. Mine shafts has them. How come an aircraft full of passengers has no chemical detector?
If I went out [inaudible 00:41:57], by law, I need to put a carbon monoxide detector in there to make sure the oxygen is safe. There’s nothing like that on an aircraft. So you can have [inaudible 00:42:09].
And nobody knows what’s happening. This could explain why you have incidents like the one you had a couple of years ago in the States where the pilot forgot to land. How can you forget to land in all your years of flying? I don’t see how that’s possible unless everybody is affected because you would have passengers saying, “Somebody’s waiting there. We could be landing soon.” But nobody noticed. They overflew their destination by an hour. How was that?
DEBRA: Oh, my God.
DEE PASSON: I think it was either to or from Hawaii. That was a major incident. They said they lost situational awareness. How is that possible? It’s only if they’re brains…
DEBRA: That’s chemicals. That’s chemical exposure.
DEE PASSON: Yes.
DEBRA: I mean they’re a neurotoxic. They affect your brain and your nervous system and your ability to think.
DEE PASSON: Yes, that’s one of the scariest things. It’s not just a health problem, it’s a safety problem because there may be passengers who are very, very healthy and they’ve got tons of enzymes in their liver and they think, “I’m alright, Jack.” But if you are a pilot suffering from Aerotoxic Syndrome (and there are many who do), then you are still in trouble.
So we have to get this sorted from the safety point of view. Pilots do have full face 100% oxygen on the flight deck. Passengers don’t. But one of the first things that’s knocked out is your ability to reason. You have to know that you need to put the oxygen on.
DEBRA: That’s exactly right. What happens is that your ability to think goes out and then you’re not aware that you’re not thinking properly. You just can’t think. And if your thinking goes out, you can’t do anything to help yourself.
DEE PASSON: Yeah, I’ve been on a flight where I couldn’t remember how to put someone on oxygen. It’s something I’ve been doing for over years. I was standing there and I didn’t have a clue. I was thinking, “What on earth was wrong with me?” Now, all of these incidents make sense.
DEBRA: You’re just making me speechless with some of these things that you’re telling me. Here in the United States (and then probably in the UK too), there are a number of chemicals that we’re being exposed to in consumer products. Not that deadly as what you’re talking about, we don’t know. People are dying in just great numbers. But we’re also not in enclosed areas like an airplane cabin.
But it amazes me that if you have something like formaldehyde for example, if you’re working with formaldehyde in occupational setting, there would be warnings and things about formaldehyde and that it causes cancer. But there can be formaldehyde all over consumer products and there are no warning labels needed at all.
And something that has just been alarming to me for very many years (because I’ve been doing this for over 30 years) is just that the same chemical can be in different situations. It’s not consistent about how that chemical is treated or what the warnings are or that it even needs to be required to be listed on the label.
An airline is, in a way, a consumer product. You buy it like you would buy anything else. You go into this environment (like buying a hotel room or something) that you’re putting your life in the hands of the person who’s producing that product. And people need to be more responsible. These businesses need to be more responsible. It’s not that we don’t know that the toxics exist.
DEE PASSON: Yeah. We have been trusting for years, haven’t we? We thought that the government had our best interest at heart and we just didn’t realize that the majority of these chemicals are untested. There are no detectors in an aircraft for a reason. They don’t want to know.
The minute we find out exactly how bad this problem is, they will have to pay compensation and they don’t want to do that. The laws exist, but they’re just not being implemented.
We have one in UK called the Civil Aviation Act . I wrote to my representative in the Parliament and he said, “Yes, you are protected under that. The Executive State is responsible for the welfare of all onboard a British aircraft.” But they delegate that responsibility to the Civil Aviation Authority.
So then I wrote to the Civil Aviation Authority and they said, “No, no, no. It’s not ours. It’s the Health and Safety Executive.”
So then I talked to the Health and Safety Executive and they said, “We have a memorandum of understanding [inaudible 00:46:51].”
Nobody is taking responsibility for actually making sure that the law is upheld [inaudible 00:47:01].
DEBRA: I agree. As you were talking earlier in the show, I just started having this picture in my mind of a movie (and there isn’t a movie like this, I’m sure. Well, I’m not sure). But what I got in my mind was to make a movie where…
DEE PASSON: Actually, one has been made. It had its premiere in February 2015. It’s made by an ill-health retired captain. He was probably one of the very first person to find out exactly what we’re being exposed to. He [inaudible 00:47:40] to find out everything. He’s been fantastic. He’s known as Captain Tristan Loraine and he has made a film called A Dark Reflection.
It’s available on the internet to watch on-demand now. It’s at ADarkReflection.com. It’s a fictional account of two journalists looking into this cover-up and finding out what’s in the engine or whether [inaudible 00:48:03]. It was pilots who did it. It’s really, really worth viewing. I’m in it very, very briefly for about two seconds as an extra.
DEBRA: Well, the movie I was seeing in my mind was that consumers would just get outraged and that there would be a massive strike that people would not fly. And the people would buy tickets and then not fly and the whole airline system would just get shut down for a day to bring attention to this because the passengers would refuse to fly on toxic airplanes.
DEE PASSON: Yeah, there were strikes in Germany of crews trying to highlight this. But yes, that’s just good. That would be brilliant. They need to know about this.
We’re all seeing aircraft now diverting and landing because passengers are complaining and they’re saying, “That is going to make me ill. I don’t want to breathe it in.” That’s what we need to happen. I think we’ve all been too passive for too long.
There are a lot of things you can do. You can take the [inaudible 00:49:13]. But ultimately, we need to sort this problem out and make sure that the air is safe for all of us to breathe.
DEBRA: The number one rule in the field of toxicology is to remove the person from the poison. That’s the number one thing to do. It doesn’t say, “Go ahead and poison everybody and then make everybody detox.” It says, “Remove the person from the poison.” And what we need to do is stop having poisoned planes.
Anyway, we’ve only got just a few seconds. Thank you so much for being here. This is important information.
DEE PASSON: Thank you.
DEBRA: And you can go to this website, ToxicFreeAirlines.com. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and you’ve been listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. Be well.
