Airline personnel dose-effects

[Muckerheide <muckerheide@MEDIAONE.NET>]

Although not relevant to health effects, the following results are

significant to the silly idea of taking flight radiation effects seriously:



Radiat Prot Dosimetry 1999;86(4):275-278

Cytogenetic investigations in flight personnel.



Wolf G, Obe G, Bergau L.

Robert Koch Institute Berlin, Germany.



During long-distance flights at high altitudes flight personnel are exposed

to cosmic radiation. In order to determine whether there are biological

effects of such low dose radiation exposure in aircrew, chromosomal

aberrations were investigated in 59 female cabin attendants and a matched

control group of 31 members of station personnel. The mean number of

dicentric chromosomes amounts to 1.3 (95% CI 1.0-1.6) per 1000 cells in

cabin attendants and 1.4 (95% CI 1.0-1.9) per 1000 cells in controls. In an

additional control group of 56 female clerks from Berlin the mean frequency

of dicentric chromosomes was 1.3 (95% CI 1.0-1.6). Neither in dicentric

frequency and distribution nor in other aberrations was a significant

difference between the groups of flight and station personnel found. The

high frequency of multi-aberrant cells was remarkable in flight personnel as

well as in station personnel. The reason for this phenomenon is unknown and

needs further investigation.

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Regards, Jim Muckerheide



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