By Vinciane Cabaret, BeCA CAQ Expert

We dedicated a large part of our last Cockpit Flash (Winter 2017/2018) to Cabin Air Quality and the Aerotoxic Syndrome.

Het Laatste Nieuws published an article on November 24 2017 (Overheid start onderzoek naar gifdampen op vliegtuigen) mentioning that the cabinet De Block had mandated a study to determine whether or not Aerotoxic Syndrome could be considered an occupational disease.

BeCA took the opportunity to contact the Cabinet in the aftermath of this article, so that we could share our knowledge and experience on the subject.

Fedris (the federal agency for occupational risks) has been appointed to conduct this study.

Last April, we had the opportunity to meet with their “Commission agents chimiques et toxiques/ Commissie chemische en toxische agentia”.

The meeting itself was very constructive and open. The commission had a clear picture of the subject and, although they admit that there is something, they could not make a causal link between a chronic low dose exposure and neurologic symptoms.

This is mainly due to the lack of studies on chronic exposure (most of them focus on acute exposures),

underreporting, and the lack of a standardised medical protocol.

A standardised medical protocol could help us gather valuable data, which could then be analysed.

Today, there is no standardised medical protocol in Belgium. Even worse, there is no medical institute (hospital, private, etc..) where we can send our crews following a fume event.

As a professional association, this is unacceptable!

So, at the beginning of the summer we once again contacted the Cabinet De Block and asked them to designate an independent medical institution to establish a medical protocol and analyse the data gathered.

Our aim is to have a common approach with the unions.

As you can read, underreporting is one of the main issues to make a point here. The only tool we have as pilots, is reporting. If you want solutions to be found to this problem, we need as much data as possible so that studies actually reflect reality. So in one word “REPORT”!

In our next CF, we will keep you updated about the outcome of the meetings with the Cabinet as well as the outcome of the study due this autumn.