Tag: pancreatic cancer

100 Untimely* deaths recorded in Irish Air Corps toxic chemical exposure tragedy!

Untimely* deaths of serving & former Irish Air Corps personnel

  • 100 verified deaths have occurred in total since 1980 
  • 87 of these deaths have occurred since 2000
  • 62 of these deaths have occurred since 2010
Either the rate of death is accelerating or we are missing many deaths from previous decades or possibly both.
 

3 most significant causes of death

  • 41% of deaths are from cancer
  • 5% of deaths are specifically pancreatic  cancer
  • 29% of deaths are from cardiac issues
  • 6% of deaths are specifically cardiomyopathy related
  • 15% of deaths are from suicide (at least 15 suicides)

*We record untimely as dying at or before age 66 (civilian pension age), average age of death is 53 years. We are counting deaths from medical reasons & suicide, we are not counting accidental deaths nor murder.

We are not stating that every single death is directly due to chemical exposure but many personnel who did not handle chemicals directly were unknowingly exposed due to close proximity to contaminated work locations.

Baldonnel Bingo – Dichloromethane Edition

Baldonnel Bingo – Where only the good die young!

Who will be the champion ? ARF, Avionics, BFTS, ERF or MTS?

All the below illnesses are known* to be caused by dichloromethane (DCM) also known as methylene chloride.

DCM was banned after a vote in the European Parliament in January 2009. The ban came into place in 2011 but the Irish Air Corps were still happy to let unsuspecting personnel use DCM without PPE or training in 2015 & likely beyond.

The Irish Air Corps finally issued PPE to all personnel using chemicals in 2017 a full 20 years after being told to do so by state body Forbairt.

Click on image to download a 30 player PDF or organise a game online here

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References*

Klaassen CD, Ed. Casarett and Doull’s Toxicology: The Basic Science of Poisons, 6th Edition. New York: McGraw-Hill 2001.
LaDou J, Ed. Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 3rd Edition. New York: Lange Medical/McGraw-Hill Company, 2004.
Leikin JB, Davis A, Klodd DA, Thunder T, Kelafant GA, Paquette DL, Rothe MJ, Rubin R. Selected topics related to occupational exposures. Part V. Occupational cardiovascular disease. Disease-a-Month. 2000 Apr;46(4):311-322.
Lynge E, Anttila A, Hemminki K. Organic solvents and cancer. Cancer Causes and Control. 1997 May;8(3):406-19.
Rom WM. Environmental and Occupational Medicine, 3rd Edition. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins Publishers, 1998.
Severe Optic Neuropathy Caused by Dichloromethane Inhalation
Atsushi Kobayashi, Akira Ando, Nobuko Tagami, Masahiko Kitagawa, Emi Kawai, Masako Akioka, Eiko Arai, Toshio Nakatani, Satoshi Nakano, Yoshie Matsui, and Miyo Matsumura Published Online:8 Dec 2008https://doi.org/10.1089/jop.2007.0100
Environmental and Chemical Toxins and Psychiatric Illness By James S. Brown. Publisher: American Psychiatric Association Publishing (27 Feb. 2002) Language: English ISBN-10: 0880489545

Irish Air Corps Health & Safety officer ordered evidence of Carbon Monoxide risks destroyed.

In 1995 the Irish Air Corps commissioned an independent third party organisation to carry out air quality testing in the Engine Repair Flight building. ERF comprised the Engine Overhaul facility, the Non Destructive Testing workshop and the Machine shop. Avionics Squadron was located in the same physical building as the ERF and the open attic spaces meant  chemical vapours & fumes from either unit were free to flow in either direction.

The Avionics / ERF building was also less than 20m downwind from the 3m high Spray Paint Shop exhaust stack which exhausted benzene, hexamethylene diisocyanate, toluene and xylene.

Ambient Air Monitoring for Health & Safety at Work Report from the 2nd of August 1995 found that #Dichloromethane (also known as Methylene chloride) was found in some areas to be 175ppm. At the time The most stringent health and safety limits for #DCM were 50 ppm (TWA for 8 hours) and 126 ppm (STEL for 15 minutes).

Personnel, including other ranks employed in the Formation Safety Office, were never informed of these results. Avionics / ERF personnel were left in situ for a further 12 years before the workshops were finally condemned & demolished and needlessly exposed to #DCM and other chemicals.

Significantly Dichloromethane metabolises as Carbon Monoxide once inhaled but is lethal in many other different ways.  We have at least 10 untimely deaths of men who worked in this building alone, their average age of death was 49.3 years and the youngest was only 32.

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So we have one state body warning the general public about the dangers of Carbon Monoxide, while another state body hid evidence of a known carbon monoxide threat from personnel working in a heavily contaminated facility.

Delay – Deny – Die