Memorandum by the Air Transport Users
Council (AUC)
The Air Transport Users Council believes that
the Committee's report on Air Travel and Health, published in
2000, was a landmark document. It identified unresolved questions
about aviation health issues on the basis of available information.
It did much to put these issues into perspective and refute some
of the misleading publicity surrounding the issue, and it set
in train the allocation of responsibility in the UK for addressing
aviation health issues to the Aviation Health Working group (AHWG)
and the Aviation Health Unit (AHU).
The AHWG has facilitated a coherent approach
on aviation health issues amongst the relevant UK organisations
and industry representatives. It has been supported by the AHU,
which has provided informed advice to the AHWG, the public, airline
crew and the media, through its research into various aviation
health issues.
The 2000 report recommended that the AUC refine
its advice on health issues in its booklet Flight Plan
to make it more specific than advising passengers to talk to their
doctors about health issues. The Department for Transport requested
that the AUC include the Department of Health (DH)'s advice on
deep vein thrombosis in Flight Plan. The AUC added the
DH's advice when the new edition of the booklet was published
in April 2002. The AUC has subsequently discontinued Flight Plan
and moved all its advice to its website, including the DH's advice
on Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT).
In the period since publication of the report,
the Internet has transformed the way that information is supplied
to consumers. It has made it easier for many organisations to
set out to offer advice, but it has led to a proliferation of
unauthenticated consumer advice on many issues on many different
websites, much of which is often taken directly from other sources.
This can be inaccurate and often is not updated as and when the
source material is updated.
It is therefore important that advice on the
health of air passengers comes from a specialist body. The AUC's
preferred approach is to offer detailed advice on its area of
expertise, such as flight delays or mishandled baggage. With more
specialist advice, such as health issues, it provides links to
the websites of other organisations. The AUC has removed the DH's
advice on DVT from its website and provides a link to the relevant
pages on the AHU and DH's websites. This ensures that the advice
on aviation health on the AUC website is accurate and up to date.
We note that the Call for Evidence refers to
measures taken to address new health concerns such as SARS and
pandemic influenza. The aviation industry can indeed be a factor
in spreading such diseases. But the AUC considers that these are
general public health issues and not limited to the aviation community
14 June 2007
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