Originally Posted by
CdCf
Are you seriously suggesting that 2000 people passing through Heathrow airport die from DVT every year? That's an insanely high number! If that were true, I think the civil aviation authorities would impose severe health restrictions on air travellers immediately.
I don't know, or know of, anyone among my relatives, friends and acquaintances having even had DVT, let alone died from it.
And again, people are seated for just as long, in comparable environments at work, and DVT seems absent from there. No, I simply don't think this is as big an issue as you're trying to make it.
No actually I thought that number was crazy high also, but my point is that it's a much, much bigger number than people that die from turbulance. Unfortunately, the news media loves the turbulance stories (almost like a crash), but DVT isn't that dramatic (just someone's health issue). And yes, I personally know 2 people that have had DVT bad enough to go to the hospital after flying and have met several others while flying (of course, I fly a lot and I'm typically sitting next to other people that fly a lot).
Take a look at the following link. I know these are 'internet' numbers and there are inconsistencies between them, but it would be hard to argue that there are not hundreds or thousands of people that die each year from DVT worldwide related to airline travel. I really believe you are way more likely to have significant medical issues from DVT than a significant health issue from turbulance (even if you ignored the fasten seat belts sign). As they say, we can agree to disagree.
http://old.disinfo.com/archive/pages...pg1/index.html
Excerpt:
Frequency
Flight-related DVT is not being studied systematically, so it's difficult to tell how many people have been affected by it. According to The Age of Melbourne, Australia, some studies report that every year 30,000 people die from flight-related DVT around the world.
At the beginning of this year, Ashford Hospital in Surrey released a report estimating that at least 2,000 people die of flight-related DVT each year in Britain alone. In fact, DVT kills at least one person per month at London's Heathrow airport.
The Aviation Health Institute estimates that every year in the UK 30,000 people develop DVT--mostly non-fatal cases--because of flights.
In December 2000, a doctor at the Nippon Medical School clinic at Tokyo's Narita Airport said that 25 people--including an American pilot�have died from DVT at the airport in the past eight years. In addition, 100 to 150 people are treated for the condition every year at the airport.
The actual number of people who developed flight-related DVT is likely to be much higher, especially if the clot doesn�t result in death. Many articles on the subject quote medical authorities who note that clots may not make themselves known till days, weeks, or longer after a flight. Plus, even if the person sees a doctor, the connection to air travel may not be uncovered.
The US government doesn't keep statistics and no nationwide studies have been done, but the Airhealth.org Web site has extrapolated some figures.
We do know that each year 800,000 people are hospitalized with blood clots, and an additional 70,000 die. If we take the lowest rate of flight-related DVT found in the studies--5 percent of clot patients (mentioned above)--that still equals 40,000 people hospitalized and 3,500 dead each year in the US due to blood clots formed on airplanes.
Remember, that's a conservative estimate