Radiation link in flight attendant's breast cancer, French court finds

There's no doubt cumulative exposure is a risk factor as a population.

https://hms.harvard.edu/news/pilots-flight-attendants-have-g...

But how can they point to one individual and say it's causal? Maybe they caught some radon. Maybe something else?

The idea that "courts" are equipped to address scientific questions is ridiculous. Perhaps French courts are better -- in the US, it is very much about decisions based on a confrontational presentation of "evidence", something like "debates" about evolution or vaccine injuries.

Debates are about persuasion, not reality. And, in some contexts (like whether you should go to jail), there is a process argument that there needs to be a debate-like process. Science deals in facts and statistics that have associated uncertainty. For scientific questions, there should be better decision making processes than courts.

> Smoking was authorised on Air France flights until 2000.

I'm sorry, what? The first flight I took which I recall in detail was in 1995 and even back then the "no smoking sign" seemed redundant.

Guess it wasn't.

Related:

Cancer-related mortality among US pilots and flight attendants

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49389524

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