r/CaughtMyEye • u/detectiverobert • 1d ago

In 1987, Steve Rothstein bought a lifetime unlimited first-class American Airlines pass for $250,000. He took over 10,000 flights, costing the airline an estimated $21 million. In 2008, American Airlines terminated his pass, accusing him of fraud for booking flights under fake names.

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u/CallMeGlarthir 1d ago

Jesus.. How much radiation was this guy exposed to?

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u/lost-myspacer 1d ago

No more than any flight attendant?

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u/romastra 1d ago edited 2h ago

Ionizing radiation effect is overvalued in folks minds.

UPD: the explanation for this point of view.

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u/blind_blake_2023 1d ago

Flgiht crews average 3 to 6 mSv per year—an amount higher than many terrestrial nuclear power plant technicians. It's clealy undervalued in your mind... Studies show flight crews experience higher rates of radiation-related cancer deaths due to this repeated cumulative exposure.

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u/romastra 1d ago edited 1d ago

Radiation caused cancer is diagnosted more often within flight crews, you're right. But I'm not arguing with this. :D

I meant people overvalue the impact of that radiation to their lives.

In the well‑known Scandinavian study, 10,032 pilots were followed for 17 years. During this time, 466 cases of cancer were identified in them, while, according to the average statistics for ordinary citizens, 456 cases were expected.

Why? Hypotetically, they don't smoke, have no food obsessions, etc, etc…

So, that radiation impact is not more dangerous than a "regular" live. And if people don't bother on their live style impact why should they do that for radiation?

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u/CheesyElefante 6h ago

Ionizing radiation, not ionic. Ionizing radiation means the particles have enough energy to ionize atoms and includes particles that are not ions.

Following the principles of ALARA, wouldn’t you want as little dose as possible regardless if you smoke or not? Assume a linear relationship between cancer risk and dose - let’s not argue the hypothetical of if hormesis is real or not. General population gets ~ 0.5 mSv or so, so flight crews are getting 6-12 times as much dose per year.

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u/romastra 2h ago

Thank you for drawing attention to the slip. I’m happy with how Reddit corrects inaccuracies. Hope, this doesn't make the rest of the text unreadable.

How does your appeal to the amount of absorbed radiation make my statement wrong?

I never argue against the numbers. But people still pay way too much attention to the radiation danger in comparison to their life style problems.

Of course, you shouldn’t have items in your home that are highly radioactive. But you shouldn’t worry about this more than you worry about a sedentary lifestyle and smoking.

If you’re not satisfied with the statistics on pilots provided above, you might be interested in Japanese studies on life expectancy among survivors of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Spoiler: the difference in life expectancy turned out to be virtually negligible, even though they additionally received almost a year’s worth of pilot’s dose AT ONCE.

The only justified concern is for kids: while a body grows, it's more prominent to mutations caused by radiation. And again, kids are more prominent to the rest of the mentioned factors too.