Friends Don’t Let Friends Breathe Oil Fumes

The airline industry has long known that the air you breathe on board can be contaminated with highly toxic oil fumes. But if you breathe oil fumes on your flight today or tomorrow or next month, and you get sick, it's up to YOU to prove that your sickness is caused by those fumes. Airlines typically deny that these oil fumes can make people sick, and you can't just go to the doctor and get a blood test to prove it. Why? Because there is NO blood test specific to the toxins in these fumes.

Don't wait – these top-notch researchers need our help NOW. Time is running out for the project, because without funding, it will have to close down. Just $5 – or more if you are able – will make a difference. Friends don't let friends breathe oil fumes onboard. Spread the message and help this important crew project deliver what crews need.Want to help change that? Contribute $5 to an ongoing crew health research project at the University of Washington that is specifically designed to develop a test to determine if you were breathing engine oil fumes onboard. Research requires funding, but if we all contribute just a LITTLE, we can do this.

More information:

• The air you breathe in the cabin and flight deck is first compressed in either the aircraft engines or auxiliary power unit.
• The engines and APU have lots of moving parts which are lubricated with oil and are heated to very high temperatures in operation.
• It has been known since the 1950s that oil from the engine/APU can contaminate the very air that is then cooled, dehumidified, and pumped through the cabin air supply vents for you to breathe.
• Oil fumes can smell like oil, but they're more often described as dirty socks, or a foul, musty smell. They can even smell electrical. And it's not always obvious where the smell is coming from.
• Because your breathing air comes from the engines, and the engines can leak toxic oil, most people think that there must be a filter in that system to clean the air before it's delivered through the cabin vents. The reality is that the only filter is you.

NOTE: The financial aspects of this campaign are being managed by the airline crew union coalition, GCAQE, of which AFA-CWA is an active member. 100% of your contribution (with the exception of a small and unavoidable paypal processing fee) will be sent to the research team directly.