DC Medical Malpractice & Patient Safety Blog

There’s ignorance, and then there’s dangerous, irresponsible, willful ignorance.

In a series of posts, the website HealthNewsReview exposed the bone-headed actions of Delta Airlines in showing an onboard video sponsored by an anti-science organization minimizing the importance of flu shots. The video “urges viewers to become informed about influenza and how to stay well during the flu season without resorting to the influenza vaccine.”

As you might imagine, the response has been vigorous, including an online petition to “tell Delta Airlines to stop putting their passengers’ health at risk.” The medical establishment weighed in formally in a letter to Delta CEO Richard Anderson from Dr. Robert W. Block, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). He wrote:

“The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) objects to the paid advertisement/public service message from the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) being shown throughout the month of November on Delta’s in-flight programming….
While hand washing and covering sneezes are parts of a larger strategy to prevent the spread of influenza, influenza vaccine continues to be the best way to protect against the disease. It is especially important in enclosed settings where disease droplets can easily spread to passengers sitting in close quarters, especially infants and children and those with special health care needs.

The AAP and many other child health organizations have worked hard to protect children and their families from unfounded and unscientific misinformation regarding vaccine safety. The influenza vaccine is safe and effective.

By providing advertising space to an organization like the NVIC, which opposes the nation’s recommended childhood immunization schedule and promotes the unscientific practice of delaying or skipping vaccines altogether, you are putting the lives of children at risk, leaving them unprotected from vaccine-preventable diseases. Diseases like influenza can have serious consequences. From September 2010 to August 2011, 115 children died from influenza disease, most of whom were unvaccinated.”

Another physician, Val Jones, blogged about this dereliction of corporate responsibility as well, noting that the airline had ignored the righteous outcry and committed to running the video ads through November.

“Every year the influenza virus kills as many as 49,000 Americans and 500,000 individuals world-wide,” she writes. "… I don't understand why Delta, having been duly informed of their mistake, would continue to run ads from a group that misinforms Americans about vaccine-preventable illness. I wanted to believe that they would do the right thing….”

“Which means that I will NOT be flying Delta in the foreseeable future and I hope you won't either. When US physician organizations are flat out ignored by corporate executives, it leaves us with only one choice—to speak with our feet. Sadly, the bottom line may matter more to them than the health and safety of their passengers.”

If you wish to sign the online petition, link here. You may also Tweet your feelings to #DontFlyDelta hashtag.

If you've been on an airplane recently, and if your trip lasted for more than seven hours, you may remember that the flight attendants warned you at the beginning of the trip about the risk of getting deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and told you to do exercises with your calf muscles to keep this from happening.

DVT is the formation of a blood clot in a "deep vein," a vein that is deep inside the body (as opposed to veins that are close to the body's surface). Usually DVT occurs in a leg vein. If the clot embolizes--that is, if it starts traveling through the blood stream--there is the risk of it blocking arteries within other organs and severely damaging them. Often the lungs are affected, and when this happens the blood clot is called a pulmonary embolism. DVT is sometimes also called deep venous thrombosis.

Often people get DVT by sitting in one place for a long time, such as on plane rides, which is why flight attendants give you that warning. Sitting in one place for a long time can be bad for circulation, while exercise increases it and discourages formation of blood clots.

All of this has been common knowledge among medical professionals for some time. But a new study shows that the risk of DVT on long plane flights is greater than was previously confirmed: on long-haul airplane flights (7 hours or longer), the risk of DVT is roughly tripled. In the study, the mean age of the participants was 40, which makes the researchers suspect that the risk is actually greater in the general population. They do not recommend drugs to pre-empt DVT for most travelers, but say that such measures may be warranted in rare cases of extremely high-risk individuals. Ordinary passengers should take care to follow the crew's instructions for calf exercises, and also get up and walk around every so often.

For more information:

Medline: Deep Venous Thrombosis

National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute: Animation demonstrating deep vein thrombosis

Dvt.net: Protection and Treatment, with prevention guides, checklists and suggestions for in-flight fitness.