Links

The Internet contains a vast number of sites on "economy class syndrome", "travelers' thrombosis" and so forth. Interestingly, a Google search for "economy class syndrome" on 7 May 2007 yielded some 87,000 hits, yet a search for "travel related thrombosis" yielded but 568! Many of these sites relate to commercial products or to news items and media releases. Thus, the number of useful sites is rather small: in addition to the House of Lords Select Committee report mentioned here, Airhealth.org is of some interest. This is a non-profit organization dedicated to ending suffering and fatalities which might be related to flight-induced DVT and PE. The web site contains information prepared by both physicians and scientists including a "ranking" of airlines based on the provision of information to passengers on how to avoid travel related thrombosis. There is a small bibliography of papers published, in the main, over 5 years ago. The site also has a summary of previous law suits.

The Aviation Health Institute, claims to be the world's first independent non-profit body dealing with aviation health issues. It has three aims, research, education and prevention. The website also has a page on the victims' association, VARDA , and SKYTRAX, which provides a comprehensive analysis of world airlines, also includes a useful summary of first, business and economy/coach class seat pitches from 162 airlines. Some eleven airlines are amongst the "best" at 34 inches in economy/coach class including three with regular long haul flights to Australia (Air NZ, Malaysia Airlines and Thai Airways). Interestingly, when the ASTH launched its website in 2000, a number of airlines had a minimum seat pitch of 28 inches. Now, seven years later, the minimum seat pitch in "regular" economy/coach class is 29 inches, and Britannia should be complimented on achieving the great increase - from 28" to 31" (Economy class in BA and Qantas both have pitches of 31 inches)*. John Scurr, author of the study in Lancet has his own site which includes a summary of this 2001 paper provided to assist with understanding of travel-related DVT and to offer advice on what to do whilst flying.