Air quality in passenger cabins of DC‐9 and MD‐80 aircraft

Malmfors, Törbjorn; Thorburn, Daniel; Westlin, Arne

doi:10.1080/09593338909384778

Cited by 25 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…The optimal relative humidity for comfort is about 40 to 70 % (Rayman 1997), and the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Conditioning Engineering standard for buildings (ASHRAE 1999) is for a minimum relative humidity of 20 %. The bleed air from the engines of a modern jet, which is used to maintain cabin pressure, has a relative humidity of 0.5 to 1 % (Space et al 2000;Spengler and Wilson 2003), and most of the moisture within the cabin is provided by the passengers (Malmfors et al 1989;O'Donnell et al 1991), although there is also some moisture from galleys and toilets (O'Donnell et al 1991). At cruise altitudes, the cabin humidity depends on passenger load (Malmfors et al 1989;Arnold et al 2000) and is typically 5 to 20 %, but can be as low as 2 % (Backman and Haghighat 2000;Wieslander et al 2000).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The bleed air from the engines of a modern jet, which is used to maintain cabin pressure, has a relative humidity of 0.5 to 1 % (Space et al 2000;Spengler and Wilson 2003), and most of the moisture within the cabin is provided by the passengers (Malmfors et al 1989;O'Donnell et al 1991), although there is also some moisture from galleys and toilets (O'Donnell et al 1991). At cruise altitudes, the cabin humidity depends on passenger load (Malmfors et al 1989;Arnold et al 2000) and is typically 5 to 20 %, but can be as low as 2 % (Backman and Haghighat 2000;Wieslander et al 2000). During take off and landing, the bleed air from the engines is shut off so that full power is available from the engines (Arnold et al 2000;Lindgren 2003); in these periods, 100 % of the cabin air is re-circulated, and the humidity is therefore higher than at cruise altitudes, but is still low.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Effect of Flying and Low Humidity on the Admittance of the Tympanic Membrane and Middle Ear System

Morse

2013

JARO

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Many passengers experience discomfort during flight because of the effect of low humidity on the skin, eyes, throat, and nose. In this physiological study, we have investigated whether flight and low humidity also affect the tympanic membrane. From previous studies, a decrease in admittance of the tympanic membrane through drying might be expected to affect the buffering capacity of the middle ear and to disrupt automatic pressure regulation. This investigation involved an observational study onboard an aircraft combined with experiments in an environmental chamber, where the humidity could be controlled but could not be made to be as low as during flight. For the flight study, there was a linear relationship between the peak compensated static admittance of the tympanic membrane and relative humidity with a constant of proportionality of 0.00315 mmho/% relative humidity. The low humidity at cruise altitude (minimum 22.7 %) was associated with a mean decrease in admittance of about 20 % compared with measures in the airport. From the chamber study, we further found that a mean decrease in relative humidity of 23.4 % led to a significant decrease in mean admittance by 0.11 mmho [F(1,8)=18.95, P= 0.002], a decrease of 9.4 %. The order of magnitude for the effect of humidity was similar for the flight and environmental chamber studies. We conclude that admittance changes during flight were likely to have been caused by the low humidity in the aircraft cabin and that these changes may affect the automatic pressure regulation of the middle ear during descent.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effect of Flying and Low Humidity on the Admittance of the Tympanic Membrane and Middle Ear System

Morse

2013

JARO

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“…A 30 May 1989 bill to CIAR from Covington & Burling contained charges for ''continued work in connection with the SAS project, including consulting with Professor Malmfors and others in Washington and Stockholm concerning their research report, consulting with the Executive Director and Company scientists concerning the draft report and related matters, and editing the draft report…''. 83 A substantial difference existed between the published IFAQ study results paper ''Air Quality in Passenger Cabins of DC-9 and MD-80 Aircraft'' 84 published under Malmfors' authorship in the journal Environmental Technology Letters in 1989, and the draft report TNO had produced. 74 While the TNO draft reported standard deviations and full ranges for recorded values (reproduced in fig 1), Malmfors et al reported standard errors of the mean and 5%/95% range in separate tables (reproduced in fig 2 and 3).…”

Section: Misleading Presentation Of Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A tobacco industry study of airline cabin air quality: dropping inconvenient findings

Neilsen

Glantz

2004

Tob Control

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Objective: To examine an industry funded and controlled study of in flight air quality (IFAQ). Methods: Systematic search of internal tobacco industry documents available on the internet and at the British American Tobacco Guildford Depository. Results: Individuals from several tobacco industry companies, led by Philip Morris, designed, funded, conducted, and controlled the presentation of results of a study of IFAQ for the Scandinavian airline SAS in 1988 while attempting to minimise the appearance of industry control. Industry lawyers and scientists deleted results unfavourable to the industry's position from the study before delivering it to the airline. The published version of the study further downplayed the results, particularly with regard to respirable suspended particulates. The study ignored the health implications of the results and instead promoted the industry position that ventilation could solve problems posed by secondhand smoke. Conclusions: Sponsoring IFAQ studies was one of several tactics the tobacco industry employed in attempts to reverse or delay implementation of in-flight smoking restrictions. As a result, airline patrons and employees, particularly flight attendants, continued to be exposed to pollution from secondhand smoke, especially particulates, which the industry's own consultants had noted exceeded international standards. This case adds to the growing body of evidence that scientific studies associated with the tobacco industry cannot be taken at face value.

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“…68 Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology, which published the article by Sullivan and Barlow, 16 requires that acknowledgments include "details of funding." The Sullivan review, 16 as well as the other cases described above, 15,63,64,66,67 illustrates the need for journals to require complete disclosure of all sponsor involvement in the conduct of a study and the preparation of the manuscript. However, such disclosure guidelines have been demonstrated repeatedly not to be effective with the tobacco industry, which seeks actively to minimize its role.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Those who support acceptance of tobacco industry funds argue that academic authors retain the right to publish their work and maintain final approval of the written product, 62 but this argument fails to recognize that the tobacco industry funds work to ensure that messages favorable to the industry are published and disseminated. For example, in 1988, PM led other tobacco companies in designing and controlling an airline indoor air quality study 63 that downplayed exposure to SHS and its potential health effects when smoking restrictions on airlines were being debated. 64 In 1995, the industry generated and controlled the conduct and content of a study, eventually published under Peter Lee's name, 65 that was designed specifically to refute a landmark study on lung cancer and SHS among nonsmoking women.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Changing Conclusions on Secondhand Smoke in a Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Review Funded by the Tobacco Industry

2005

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ABSTRACT. Background. Prenatal and postnatal exposure to tobacco smoke adversely affects maternal and child health. Secondhand smoke (SHS) has been linked causally with sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) in major health reports. In 1992, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) first noted an association between SHS and SIDS, and both prenatal exposure and postnatal SHS exposure were listed as independent risk factors for SIDS in a 1997 California EPA report (republished in 1999 by the National Cancer Institute) and a 2004 US Surgeon General report.The tobacco industry has used scientific consultants to attack the evidence that SHS causes disease, most often lung cancer. Little is known about the industry's strategies to contest the evidence on maternal and child health. In 2001, a review was published on SIDS that acknowledged funding from the Philip Morris (PM) tobacco company. Tobacco industry documents related to this review were examined to identify the company's influence on the content and conclusions of this review.Methods. Tobacco industry documents include 40 million pages of internal memos and reports made available to the public as a result of litigation settlements against the tobacco industry in the United States. Between November 2003 and January 2004, we searched tobacco industry document Internet sites from the University of California Legacy Tobacco Documents Library and the Tobacco Documents Online website. Key terms included "SIDS" and names of key persons. Two authors conducted independent searches with similar key terms, reviewed the documents, and agreed on relevancy through consensus. Thirty documents were identified as relevant. Two drafts (an early version and a final version) of an industry-funded review article on SIDS were identified, and 2 authors independently compared these drafts with the final publication. Formal comments by PM executives made in response to the first draft were also reviewed. We used Science Citation Index in July 2004 to determine citation patterns for the referenced SIDS reviews.Results. PM executives feared that SHS and maternal and child health issues would create a powerful and emotional impetus for smoke-free areas in the home, public areas, and the workplace. In response to the 1992 US EPA report on SHS, the Science and Technology Department of PM's Switzerland subsidiary, Fabriques de Tabac Reunies, searched for "independent" consultants to publish articles addressing SHS. The first industry-funded article was a literature review focusing on smoking and SIDS, conducted by consultant Peter Lee and co-author Allison Thornton, which stated that the association between parental smoking and SIDS could have been attributable to the failure to control fully for confounders. That first review has only been cited once, in the subsequent industry-funded review.In 1997, PM commissioned a consultant, Frank Sullivan, to write a review, with coauthor Susan Barlow, of all possible risk factors for SIDS. The first draft concluded that prenatal and postnatal smokin...

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Air quality in passenger cabins of DC‐9 and MD‐80 aircraft

Cited by 25 publications

References 14 publications

The Effect of Flying and Low Humidity on the Admittance of the Tympanic Membrane and Middle Ear System

The Effect of Flying and Low Humidity on the Admittance of the Tympanic Membrane and Middle Ear System

A tobacco industry study of airline cabin air quality: dropping inconvenient findings

Changing Conclusions on Secondhand Smoke in a Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Review Funded by the Tobacco Industry

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