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Comment by xbar | Hacker News Reader

My sincere admiration for the author's strength in the face of this terrible hardship.

A person can also avoid cancer by choosing a career that is not cancer-inducing. Given the author's cabin crew history:

    3.4% of female flight attendants reported having had breast cancer compared with 2.3% of women in the general population group
    2.2% of female flight attendants reported having had melanoma skin cancer compared with 0.98% of women in the general population group
    1.2% of male flight attendants reported having had melanoma skin cancer compared with 0.69% of men in the general population group
    7.4% of female flight attendants reported having had non-melanoma skin cancer compared with 1.8% of women in the general population group
    3.2% of male flight attendants reported having had non-melanoma skin cancer compared with 2.9% of men in the general population group

https://www.cancer.org/latest-news/study-examines-cancer-rat...

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The skin cancer + flight attendant connection has to be due to white people working in the industry. People tend to fly to places with plenty of sun and warm climates. Australia's skin cancer rates are also very high, although not so much among the aboriginal population.

I would imagine it's because of the increased radiation you receive during a flight. For one flight, it's negligible, but if it's your job to be in the stratosphere for 20+ hours a shift, year round, it will probably start to add up. It would be like spending all your work life on the beach.

> It would be like spending all your work life on the beach.

This is where flight attendants spend their non-work life :-)

The radiation from the flight could be a factor of course; but being from Norway myself, and getting burned like a cooked lobster every time I go to Spain etc. I can't imagine that stuff being healthy to do regularly (or perhaps at all).

They are also at higher risk of breast cancer though (female aircrew)

Do pilots have similarly increased rates? Or does it likely correlate with lifestyle factors (sunbaking, smoking etc).

After some googling I found a few studies that seem to show an increased risk for pilots as well, particularly skin cancer. I think the increased risk of skin cancer is interesting since that would (layman's speculation) probably be the most affected by radiation.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12862322/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5559846/

Normal glass has low transmission for UV-B and UV-C, but significant transmission of UV-A. This in combination with high altitudes (so less atmosphere) and also simple thermal heating, could already explain this.

Perhaps aircraft should add an UV-A blocking layer to their windows?

I don't think increased radiation levels would contribute differentially to skin cancer, because we're talking about gamma rays.

Looks like planes need more radiation protection. A thick heavy lead shield would be best.

thick and heavy are generally counterproductive to flying.

You shouldn't fly at all because of the increased exposure to the solar radiation at high altitude, better taxi on the ground.

unless someone comes up with another way to get across the Atlantic in 6 hours affordably, flying will be indispensable.

Isn't the paint already made out of lead? Or couldn't it be the percentage to be too low? Windows letting radiation in too.

It was interesting that reading that abstract, that it didn't cite another possible reason - more regular medical examination. I wouldn't be surprised in such a job, flight attendants might be expected to do regular medicals or have other reasons like needing prescription drugs say for sleep tablets. Having more eyes looking may pop up more incidents.

i'm guilty of the kind of avoidance that negates this. For example, you can't be forced to quarantine if you never get tested for COVID. I wonder if there's an official term for this state of mind, it's a tough habit to break and your life could depend on getting passed it.

Maybe it is related to irregular sleep schedule. Also more exposure to uv radiation while flying.

The sleep disruption is a good thought.

I would also think the exposure to jet exhaust. For me, that smell evokes a nostalgia for picking up grandparents at the airport. It is probably hazardous to work at an airport and breathe it all the time.

See "fume events"

You're also exposed to more ionizing radiation the higher up you are.

But they are not really exposed to the elements while up there. How much aluminium and airplane interior does it take to replace 10.000m of atmosphere?

A column of atmosphere 1m^2 in area weighs about 10 metric tonnes.

The thin Al skin of an aeroplane might as well be nothing at all by comparison.

According to the CDC, a west-east coast flight is about 0.035 mSv per passenger.

The average annual exposure per person in the US would be about 3.3 mSv (without medical radiation from xrays and such)[0], mostly from natural background radiation. There are high regional differences[1], could be as low as 1 mSv or as high as 20 mSv. Human made factors play a role as well, e.g. coal burning (e.g. in power plants) will dose people living close by with radioactive elements in coal ash.

Anyway, a busy crew member can do maybe the equivalent of 100 such flights a year, which would be roughly an additional dose of 3.5 mSv per year.

Their total annual exposure would then come out as double the average (US).

For comparison, an xray can be as low as 0.1 mSv for a chest one, but a whole body PET scan comes in at about 23 mSv.

So I'd conclude that being a flight crew member would of course somewhat increase your radiation-induced health risks, but maybe not as bad as people might think.

Looking at other health factors for crew members, like in-flight air quality, increased exposure to fuel (kerosene) fumes and burn products working in airports and planes, or work/sleep schedules might offer additional/better explanations for the increase in cancer in this group compared to the average population.

[0] the world average is about 2.4 mSv, Germany comes in at 2.2 mSv, Japan 1.5 mSv. Didn't find a good number for India, where the article author lives.

[1] E.g. here is a map of Germany for radon concentrations in living spaces https://www.bfs.de/SharedDocs/Bilder/BfS/EN/ion/environment/...

Thanks! I had no idea flying meant higher radiation.

> Didn't find a good number for India, where the article author lives.

Kerala in India is among the places with the highest natural radioactivity: https://www.ias.ac.in/article/fulltext/jess/095/03/0397-0407

> a busy crew member can do ... 100 such flights a year

100 flights? More like 3-500.

Also, regular exposure to pathogens.

Hmm could this also be because they have to get through the x-ray scanners more often than regular travellers?

It's caused by frequent air travel. While flying, there is less atmospheric shielding against cosmic ray radiation compared to being on the ground. Even though you get less radiation from an average flight than from medical x-ray, it adds up.

Ah I see! What alloy do you think could block the cosmic ray radiation, I though lead was doing that, isn't there enough of it on the paint? Or maybe the windows are letting the radiation in?

reported is the important word. and those populations are not equivalent.

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