Anyone Else Getting Ill on Airplanes?
 

Is this a co-incidence or a phenomenon or what? My last 4 trips, a day after arriving at my destination I come down with a sore throat, then a full blown nasty cold/flu thing. (And I've been flying mostly west-coast - not in cold climates!)

Don't you just hate that person who sits next to you with their nose running the whole time...blowing and sneezing away? Well, that's ME!

Come on Southwest...whatever you are recycling that "recycled air" through needs a new filter!

It's no coincidence. The three worst colds/flus/whatevers I've ever had were all caught during airplane flights.

The airline industry could fix this problem tomorrow if they wanted, but the "cost benefit analysis" doesn't justify the expense (at least in their opinion).

This has happened to me but after international flights from Europe to Australia - the worst flu like illness I have ever had - and it has happened twice.

As a pre-caution, and it does work.... several days before coming home I start taking an anti-biotic...For several years i couldn't figure out why I would be sick (bronchtis) a few days after arriving home from a trip....now I know..it' the recycled air..

This happens to me all the time. It's very annoying. For me, it usually starts in my sinuses and works its way down to my throat.

Maybe we should get a class-action law suit together.

ParrotMom, how do you get your doctor to give you an anti-biotic rx if you're not sick yet? I don't think my doctor would do it.

The only time I got pnuemonia was 2 days after a flight. I've always blamed SOMEONE on that flight!

This has happened to me so much, that I was actually surprised when I DIDN'T get sick on our last trip to Arizona, which happened to be on Southwest. Truthfully, it's one of the reasons why I think twice before traveling to destinations that require me to fly there.

Thought antibiotics kill bacteria not virus - so I doubt that antibiotics would really help. Also it is believed misuse of antibiotics causes proliferation of strains of resistant bacteria - so use with caution.

I find a combination of zinc and echinacea is helpful. In previous years - I found myself highly vulnerable to colds after long runs(15+ miles) - presumably from a depressed immune system. This year - so far so good and I did not take a flu shot.

The notion of planes being flying germ factories is very overrated and over hyped.

Bronchitis is very rarely caused by a virus, so anti-biotics would not work. Ask your doctor about this. To be very specific, only chronic bronchitis is caused by a bacteria, and chronic bronchitis takes years to develop. Most people get acute bronchitis, which is almost always viral, not bacterial.

Antibiotics do not work on viruses like colds either. They only work on bacterial infections.

If you are trying to "prevent" a bacterial infection, there is no proven efficacy in taking antibiotics as a prophylactic measure. In addition, take antibiotics without an actual illness is (1) dangerous for you as you could develop and immunity to the antibiotic which means it would not work for you when you really need it., and (2)selfish as this is one of the main ways in which virus develop immunity to antibiotics, which means new ones have to be developed all the time, contributing to their already high cost. I question the ethics of a doctor who is willing to prescribe an antibiotic to a patient who does not have an illness, or who does not have an illness which can be cured by antibiotics. I lived in Asia for 10 years and doctors there would routinely prescribe antibiotics for colds, which is not only silly but dangerous and selfish for the reasons noted above.

A lot of sinus problems caused by flying are the result of dryness and changing air pressure. The former can be greatly reduced by using a saline spray before, during and after a flight. You can buy these over the counter.

Tracy:

About a week before a trip take Echineasea(not sure of spelling). It can be bought in any store and usually is displayed around the vitamins area. Since most people don't have anti-biotics around this is a good choice. My Mom got sick 2 x this yr and took this on and off all season and never caught the cold.

Reply to Cicerone,
Good food for thought & agree about consulting a physician before taking meds, however my physician has indicated that viral infections may weaken one's immune system to the point that nasty bacteria normally found in the body may proliferate and contribute to illness, and so taking an antibiotic with a viral infection may prevent existing bacteria from fluorishing and speed recovery time. :S-

Does this involve health of the attendants, or their hygene standards? They come into contact with everybody, including the pilots. And what about the people who clean and service the planes ... do they have current health certificates? And what about the people who work in the terminals ... is the person who sells newpapers safe? And what about the taxis, drivers, etc.? My goodness, what we have here is a major health issue. Can anyone travel safely these days!

JohnD, I agree with you that this may help a situation where a bacteris is also associated, but this should only been done AFTER you have contracted a viral infection and your doctor has confirmed this. Taking an antibiotic will NOT prevent the viral infection, as they don't work on viruses.

The recycled air might cause some problems. IMHO though, I would guess it be more likely that other than airplanes we all don't spend so much time sitting that close to strangers. It's kinda like the "daycare crud" little ones get - especially those who spend more than 20 hours a week in daycare.

This sort of problem is discussed regularly on the European boards (and probably other international boards as well).

The dry air causes your sinuses to dry out and the normal defense mechanisms in your body don't work properly. Among things you can do to help are be sure to drink plenty of water when you fly and use a saline nasal solution to keep your nasal tissues moistened. I start using the saline solution before I get on the plane and re-dose every hour or so.

Here's some guidance from a website for transplant patients. So this would be extreme for those of us who aren't immune-compromised, but at least it's an idea of the max that can be done.

I think that wearing a mask would not only help filter out airborne germs, but would encourage other passengers to keep their distance, fearing that you were wearing the mask because you were carrying some dread disease.
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Health experts say you can do a few simple things to keep germs at bay when flying.

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Wear a mask.  It may seem drastic, but masks are perhaps the best way to filter out viruses in the coughs and sneezes of seatmates. 
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Don't touch a thing. With hundreds of people cycling on and off planes every few hours, it's inevitalbe that germs will be everywhere on board. Try to minimize contact with tray tables, windows, overhead bins, etc. and because you probably will get germs on your hands despite yourself, avoid touching your eyes, nose an mouth in flight ( wipe all surfaces, including the tray table, seat belt buckle, control buttons, with an alchohol pad, or with an antibacterial wipe.) Also, if possible eat and drink when not on plane to avoid removal of mask.
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Stay moist. Aircraft cabin air is incredibly dry: 10-20 percent humidity. Low humidity makes it easier for germs to spread.Use a saline spray to keep nasal membranes moist and to sweep away germs. Drink lots of fluids, some say a glass of water an hour.
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Move. If youre pretty sure the person next to you is sick ask to be moved, or if there are plenty of open seats, move yourself. Your proximity to someone spewing germs is the biggest factor in getting sick yourself.
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Relax. Experts say stress is a huge factor in whether you get sick, so try to make your travel day go smoothly.  Pack ahead of time, leave for the airport early and build some slack into your schedule.

Echinacea is good, it should be taken 2 weeks before the flight, I think. Also vitamin C, take 1,000 mg on a flight day, 500 before/after. Just keep in mind, if you have a weak stomach, it can cause a mild diarrhea.

The ONLY time I get sick is when I fly. I think it's the dry air, like someone else mentioned, not from being in a small space with lots of people (because I ride the subway every day).

While its true that ecycling the air deos spread some germs - they're just aslikely to be picked up somewhere else on the plane or in the airport. One of the problems is fairly mechanical. Since the air is so dry the mucous membranes in the nose and throat - which help protect by keeping germs from adhering - dry out and yuo lose the protection. So staying well- hydrated and drinking enough is at least a partial solution.

Cicerone: I'm not sure where you get your first claim, but it's absolutely incorrect. In fact the first question my doctor asks me when I go in to him with a bad cold or the flu is, "Have you been on an airplane flight recently?".

It IS a major problem, and the industry has known about it ever since they switched to closed air recycling systems on commercial aircraft.

I'm surprised that everyone is missing the key factor here.
It's NOT the air that's the major problem when it comes to plane-related infections (pilots and flight attendants would be sick CONSTANTLY if that were the main problem).
It's the hand-to-face self inoculation process that is responsible for the vast majority of plane-related infections.
You have huge numbers of people occupying a small space for hours at a time. Now watch and see how many times a person on a plane touches his or her mouth/nose/eyes with fingers during their tme on board.
That's the problem.
Try eating on a plane without touching your mouth.
You need to wash hands thoroughly before eating and minimize any contact between fingers and mouth/nose.

Try it next time you fly. If you can successfully avoid touching the face (it takes practice and effort) you should virtually eliminate this problem.
I speak from both personal (before and after) and medical experience on this one.

This has happened pretty often to me also. My flight attendant daughter was advised by a doctor to use saline washes of her nasal passages to cut down on infections.

I got a cold about two days after arriving at my past two vacation destinations and have no doubt I got it on the plane. These are the only colds I've had in the past two years!

My M.D. has treated me enough times AFTER a trip.....he usually gives me Biaxin.. BTW I worked in a hospital...I had bronchitis and my M.D wouldn't give it to my indiscrimately.. Would arrive home on a Saturday or Sunday and by Tuesday I'd be sick as a dog...what's funny is that one of the M.D's on a committee I worked on mentioned that everytime I got back from my winter vacation I was sick with bronchitis..The light bulb lit up!! I honestly believe it is the recycled air on planes..especially charter fights...No matter what the rest of you think....I haven't come down with bronchitis since I started this preventative program. Oh yes.. on a cruise we took last year (doesn't seem to affect me on a cruise).. we were asked to use a handwipe before even boarding the ship.....and also I carry a contaner of handwipes in my bag while traveling.

TRAVLEIS from what I hear, flight personnel DO get sick often. And besides, THEY are touching all of the same things that passengers touch.

This problem has gotten much worse in the past few years...and coincidently the amount of air that is recycled has gone up. ALSO, the planes are getting older and older and do we really trust the cash-strapped airlines to change the filters regularly?

To clarkgriswold: here's a recent article from the Journal of the American Medical Association in which passengers flying out of San Francisco were studied. Some flew on planes with 100% fresh (non-recirculated) air, some flew on planes with 50% recirculated air.
The number of infections during the week after travel was statistically indistinguishable.

JAMA. 2002 Dec 18;288(23):2972; author reply 2972-3.

Aircraft cabin air recirculation and symptoms of the common cold.

Zitter JN, Mazonson PD, Miller DP, Hulley SB, Balmes JR.

Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, Box 0843, San Francisco, CA 94143-0843, USA. [email protected]

CONTEXT: In recent years, new commercial aircraft have been designed to recirculate approximately 50% of the cabin air to increase fuel efficiency. Some older aircraft use only fresh air. Whether air recirculation increases the transmission of infectious disease is unknown; some studies have demonstrated higher rates of the common cold among persons working in buildings that recirculate air. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the role of air recirculation as a predictor of postflight upper respiratory tract infections (URIs). DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: A natural experiment conducted among 1100 passengers departing the San Francisco Bay area in California and traveling to Denver, Colo, during January through early April 1999, and who completed a questionnaire in the boarding area and a follow-up telephone interview 5 to 7 days later. Forty-seven percent traveled aboard airplanes using 100% fresh air for ventilation, and 53% traveled aboard aircraft that recirculated cabin air. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Incidence of reporting new URI symptoms within 1 week of the flight. RESULTS: Passengers on airplanes that did and did not recirculate air had similar rates of postflight respiratory symptoms. The rates of reporting a cold were 19% vs 21% (P =.34); a runny nose and a cold, 10% vs 11%, (P =.70); and an aggregation of 8 URI symptoms, 3% in both groups (P>.99). CONCLUSION: We found no evidence that aircraft cabin air recirculation increases the risk for URI symptoms in passengers traveling aboard commercial jets.

That study was limited to passengers flying between the San Francisco Bay area and Denver, which is only about a 3 or 3.5 hour flight. I'd like to see a similar study of, say, travelers to Hawaii, who usually have much longer flight times.

The study also had no controls and gave no details about how crowded these planes were. See:
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/288/4/483

Pardon me, that was supposed to be 2 or 2.5 hour flight.

That study is 5 years old. Let's have them do another one, maybe the air has been recycled for so long that its no longer breathable. I wasn't noticing this problem 5 years ago, but in the past 2 years I certainly have.

Still, 2 hour flights or 15 hour flights. The airlines could not afford the sick days and/or insurance if what most of you think is happening. I fly around 100K miles per year, and guess what? I'm just as healthy as everybody else that doesn't fly. Do I still get some nasty bug? sure I do and with all the flying I'm not sure if it's the plane or my regular "connections", but so do my non-flying friends.

I started to pay attention to the FAs sometime back. They wash their hands constantly. Yhey use sprays. They do whatever is necessary to put up a wall against us.

You have to realize they are in that tin can about 3-4 times a week. They would be walking zombies by now. Think about it!

Trying to prove a negative relationship is considerably more difficult than proving a causal relationship.
The data required to resolve this issue in a scientifically rigorous (indisputable) manner does not exist.

But keep in mind that if the impact of this 'bad air' were dramatic, even very basic studies would identify a problem. Common sense would have made the issue an undeniable concern years ago because there are so many millions of passengers per year. Any actual impact on passenger health nationwide is hard to discern.

It is instructive to recall the Dow Corning debacle from ~1995. The manufacturer of silicone breast implants was challenged with a host of complaints that silicone implants had caused health problems (immune related) among patients. Of the millions of women with implants, several thousand came forward to claim that various health problems, in their opinions, were related to the implants.
Dow couldn't prove otherwise because there simply wasn't any high quality data available at the time (and they were being asked to prove a negative).
Since that time a wealth of moderate quality data has been gathered which, in aggregate, suggests no relationship between silicone implants and health problems. The FDA wants better quality data before it will re-approve the implants.
That's the danger of using anecdotal (individual) experiences to try to make broad conclusions. If you flip a coin 3 times in a row and it's heads each time should you conclude there's a problem with the coin? If you get sick on a plane should you conclude it's the air, or the food, or the stress, or the germs from your hands?

travleis: From what I've read, airline companies save $60,000/year per plane with these recirculated air systems. If they had to pay medical expenses and lost wages for passengers who caught colds, flus and other illenesses on their planes, you better believe the problem would have been fixed a long time ago, or never would have existed in the first place.

Some accounting genius did a "cost benefit analysis" and figured out they'd still come out ahead financially by using these recirculation systems, and paying the resulting health care costs of their employees.

And this is really just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to private industry and public safety. Do a Google search for "tombstone technology" for one example.

I take apple cider vinegar tablets all winter long and never catch a thing....I swear by it. I used to get sick after flights (before my vinegar days), so just to be extra cautious I always take echinacia(?) two weeks before a trip. So far, so good. I also give it to my husband and son if they're flying also.

I think this catching colds and flus on planes is really just a law of averages thing. I mean, when else in our daily lives are we confined to a small space with that many other people for hours at a time? Chances are, esspecially in the winter time, that multiple people on each plane will have some sort of contageous illness. Even with the best air circulation system, the germs from sick people will exist on surfaces long enough for others to touch the surface and transfer the germs to their hands.

Now you've crossed the line into the ridiculous.
You've just stated that accountants can predict and assess the cost of injuries (illnesses) INTENTIONALLY and WILLFULLY caused by the airlines in an attempt to save money on air circulation practices.
Sorry. I'm not going to bother debunking that theory.

Yes this has happened to me on a flight to Vegas. A passenger who sat right behind me was sick. Coughing and sneezing up a storm. Naturally I felt ill during my Vegas trip and didn't get better for awhile. I felt really bad!! The airlines need to do something with the circulation on planes.

travleis: Theory? Like I said, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Forget about illnesses. How about deaths:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/innovation/about_episode5.html

Recommended viewing for anyone who's interested in how things work in the commercial aviation industry.

When deciding whether to implement new safety technology that will save people's lives, the airline industry does a "cost benefit analysis", which takes the number of people who will be killed by not implementing the technology and multiplies it by $2.5 million (the average cost of a death settlement). If the cost of implementation is higher than this figure, the technology is not implemented.

Do you really think the industry is somehow more concerned about making people sick than killing them?

Oh come on now.
That article has nothing at all to do with the topic under discussion.
The question is whether or not flying raises risk for infections, and specifically, if air recirculation is the source of the problem.

The linked article is entirely about crash avoidance technology.

I got sick a few times traveling last month.

It's so dry in the plane - 5 to 10 percent humidity. Just keep yourself moisturized, buy wear the masks the keeps in moisture on your face. Drink lots of fluids - no alcohol - and get yourself an aisle seat because you'll need it! ;)

Prevention is the key: take zinc lozenges and vitamin c in addition to your multi-vitamins everyday.

I love to travel, but it sucks to get sick when I do.

Whole charters full of air passengers are reporting illness on trips to Vegas from Hawaii, and they're blaming the two hotels that the Hawaiians frequent.

Yeah, right.