The Aerotoxic Logbook (ATLB) in English (EN)

Occupational Diseases Reform Act: 2nd and 3rd Reading in 1 Go

This is what it will come down to next Thursday, May 7. Votes are scheduled to begin at 4.15 p.m.

Originally, a public hearing was planned. This was cancelled due to the Corona measures and the statements were submitted in writing by the requested associations, which were then put online. There was no longer any discussion in the Committee for Labour and Social Affairs.

The committee summarised the positions of the associations as follows: "Public Hearings". Also included there are the individual statements. With the exception of the employers' associations, all the others regard the abandonment of the so-called injunction as positive. The latter means that if a BK (Berufskrankheit = occupational disease) is suspected and reported to a BG (Berufsgenossenschaft = Federal Employers' Association), the person concerned must give up the work due to which he or she has (allegedly) became ill. For many, this is often not possible if there is no other job alternative. This provision will now be dropped. Instead, other workplace solutions will be sought.

This is of course a thorn in the side of the Employers' Association of the Metal Industry and in its statement complains about the additional costs incurred as a result; these costs are "unacceptable".

The only positive change we ourselves see is the now, finally, planned official institutionalisation of the "Medical Expert Council 'BK' at the BMAS (Bundesministerium für Arbeit und Soziales = Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs). There are now to be scientific experts appointed; The aim is to create 10 scientific staff positions in order to be able to advance the work and the discussions in this relevant body more quickly. It remains to be seen whether scientific staff will then be able to compensate for the structural imbalance of know-how and the preparation of meetings. We will keep an eye on this.

The draft of the DIE LINKE group will be polished off smoothly, the Greens have not even put forward a position of their own - the problem obviously does not play a special role in this party in the Bundestag.

If the bill is waved through on Thursday, it could only be stopped via the Bundesrat. There, the states of Hamburg (SPD/GREENS) and Schleswig-Holstein (CDU/GREENS/FDP) had already attempted to bring in other proposals; NRW (CDU/FDP) had likewise tried to do the same.

However, the corona seems to overshadow everything at present.

The extremely low number of parliamentarians present during the 30-minute first reading of the reform document shows the 'interest' of the elected representatives in this topic - although every year around 50,000 people fail to pass the 'social net' of the statutory accident insurance system. People thereby "lose faith in the rule of law", as all those affected tell us who contact us. If we apply the disappointment to the whole family, more than 100,000 people lose faith in the law every year, simply by the non recognition of the damage done to their health caused at their workplace.

The planned reform, which is mainly the result of the GUV system, will not change this situation. What would actually be necessary, in the opinion of experts who are independent of the SHI system, and what we have compiled at www.ansTageslicht.de/Reform, will not take place - with the exception of the long overdue expansion of the "Medical Expert Council 'BK", which is now to be provided with useful equipment.

• The speech by Kerstin GRIESE (SPD), Parliamentary State Secretary at the BMAS, confirms this. She sees the "reform work" mainly in the "discharge of 4 million hours" for the citizens and "139 million Euro for the employers". The reason: the "digital reform" of the "welfare state for the future" now makes the welfare state "easier and more accessible.
• The real problems associated with occupational illnesses are obviously only perceived by the Left Party (Die Linke). That is why it has also submitted its own legislative proposal. The demands of DIE LINKE are succinctly summed up by their spokeswoman Jutta KRELLMANN in her speech: research independent of the system of the GUV, hardship regulations and shorter periods of time for the recognition of BK's. Jutta KRELLMANN summarized her party's ideas and her criticism of the GroKo reform in an article for the weekly newspaper Freitag: From Abestos to Pneumoconiosis.

The entire (short) reading can be seen and heard in the MediaThek of the German Bundestag.

Timetable for further procedure:

According to the current status (March 13th) of the "dynamic eruption":

• On 25th March the reform work is to be discussed in the responsible committee "Labour and Social Affairs".
• A hearing of some social organisations is scheduled for 20 April.
• And the second and third or final reading will take place three days later on 23rd April.

This timetable gives an immediate indication of the purpose and function of the hearing three days before the final vote.

Reform of the law on occupational diseases: 1st reading in the German Bundestag

The public debate is scheduled at 2:15 p.m., during which some of the members of parliament will have the opportunity to comment on the draft law introduced by the Federal Government. About half an hour of speaking time has been set aside for this subject. The debate will be broadcasted live by Phoenix.

The Left Party has its draft in which it demands the lowering of the hurdles to recognition. However, the Bundestag administration has not made it available online. The proposals can only be read on the Left Party's website.

The Green Party has not presented anything.

The Federal States had previously demanded a whole series of changes and improvements from the Federal Government (cf. entry 14th February). The latter has adopted almost nothing of their ideas.

AnsTageslicht.de has now written to the members of the Committee for Labor & Social Affairs, who are responsible for the content of this bill: with

•     a one-page explanatory letter
•     and six examples of affected persons and two expert occupational physicians.

We are curious whether the "People's Representatives" will deal with hints and suggestions from the "People".

In March we had addressed the CSU's transport policy spokesman in the European Parliament, Markus FERBER, who in connection with the crash of two Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft had clearly criticised EASA because the authorities had known about the problems of this type of aircraft. But, they said nothing, published nothing and warned no one which is a typical behavior of regulators whose employees are exclusively concerned with their service regulations and have no empathy for potentially injured parties. Markus FERBER had said: "A flight safety authority that classifies a software error as a risk only after two planes have crashed is a risk for the citizen himself".

We brought Markus FERBER's attention to the problem of potentially contaminated cabin air and he replied:

• That he agrees that "this issue deserves more public attention".
• That the EP had on many occasions pointed out to the commission that "this problem should be examined"
• who therefore commissioned an investigation by EASA
• the results of which should be available in December of this year.
• And this is because the Commission is demanding that "events containing unusual odours and smoke must be reported in accordance with Regulation EU No. 376/2014".

FERBER writes:

"I believe that EASA - like any authority - must be closely watched and that one should not hesitate to point out shortcomings and errors. The issue of potentially contaminated cabin air is of great interest to me, I will follow the publication of the study results critically at the end of the year".

We will support Markus FERBER.

 EASA and Flight Safety Prevention

What is to be thought of the reliability and usefulness of EASA in this respect, EASA boss Patrick KY shared at the Transport Committee of the European Parliament (TRAN) on March 18th: After the fatal crash of a Boeing 737 Max 8 of the Indonesian airline Lion Air in October 2018, EASA knew already a short while afterward about the problems of the not really working MCAS software and the insufficient training of the pilots in handling it. KY now had to admit this in response to questions from MEPs.

No warning followed on the part of EASA. Also, this potential problem was obviously not communicated at all.

Instead, there was now a second crash of such an aircraft of Ethiopian Airlines on March 10th causing 157 deaths. And only now the EASA comes out with such information - after parliamentary inquiries and pressure.

Markus FERBER, the European CSU's Transport Spokesman in the EU Parliament, has a clear opinion on this issue:

"A flight safety authority that only considers a software error a risk only after two aircraft have crashed represents a risk for the citizen himself".

We now want to hear from Markus FERBER whether he also wants to ask EASA about the contaminated cabin air problem. 

The Bundestag Transport Committee has no "capacities" for the problems of statutory accident insurance and Fume Events

We had written to the four relevant committees of the Bundestag following the Federal Government's response to the Greens' question on these two aspects (entry dated 18th September), in order to find out whether they could identify contradictions in the Federal Government's responses which we have seen, and 2) whether they were of the opinion that the "own research" of the German Statutory Accident Insurance (DGUV) could be regarded as independent. Here you can read the cover letter and the 4 questions.

The first commitee has replied: "A further answer" is "not possible due to lack of capacity". Instead, the office refers to a Bundestag page where one can look up all previous  minutes from many legislative periods from this commitee.

This says a lot about the perception of the subject we are discussing in the committee’s office. We will now put our questions directly to the representatives of the political groups.

Answer from the Federal Government to a ‚small inquiry’

In the mean time the Federal Government has answered a ‚small inquiry’ submitted by the parliamentary group BÜNDNIS 90/DIE GRÜNEN, asking about the numbers of fume event occurrences: Printed matter 19/4443.

 As always, the Federal Government's answer is: They have little information and apparently want to know even less.

As it is,  also known from USA,  incidents are under-reported.  There are no mandatory reporting channels. Airlines are also 'not amused' about reports, because a reasonably effective cleaning of the air conditioning system and/or an exchange of the so-called ducts between engine and air conditioning system means considerable delays in further deployment of the aircraft. This means on one hand costs, on the other hand loss of revenue. Also for this reason experience has shown, that only some of such incidents are reported. Also considering that in most cases they are probably  (only?) less dramatic "odour events".

The considerable differences between reported incidents and actual incidents have been pointed out as examples under "Incidents“, which usually do not appear in official statistics.

Parliamentary State Secretary Steffen BILGER (CDU) answered on behalf of the Federal Government this question: "What is the Federal Government planning to do to ensure that as many fume events as possible are reported?

"The Federal Government has no evidence that Fume Events that have to be reported are not reported. Therefore, no additional measures are planned."

And the answer to the question: "To what extent is the Federal Government considering the nationwide mandatory introduction of breathing air filters that remove organophosphates and volatile organic compounds?“

"The specific substances that may contaminate cabin air have not yet been sufficiently identified or known. Only when these have been fully identified it is possible and effective to develop an appropriate filter."

The passenger association „Vereinigung Passagiere“ (VP) comments on this as follows:

"Parts of the aviation industry are more aware of the problem than the German government, because airlines such as EasyJet and Lufthansa are already testing such filter systems," (quote VP).

In fact, EasyJet in particular wants to equip all its planes with filters from Pall in the New Year (see entry from 20.9.2017 which can be found quickly when entering "EasyJet" in the search-bar). The airline announced this last year at the conference about contaminated cabin air/ aerotoxic syndrome in London.

The Federal Government and the Ministry of Transport have no idea about this and apparently also not about the two EASA studies. And, obviously they don't want to know anything.  

As has now become known, the Bundestag’s Scientific Service has made a compilation of the question:

"Which legal requirements in Germany or at the level of the European Union would have to be specifically changed in order to oblige operators and/or manufacturers of civil passenger aircraft to install appropriate filter systems?“

Two institutions have commented on this.

1) The Federal Ministry of Transport refers to the competence of EASA and notes that the BFU has knowledge "that Fume events with the usual appearance characteristics also occur at airlines which already use filters". However, the BMVI does not give an exact source.

2) The most detailed statement comes from the Vereinigung Cockpit Association (VC)  (pages 5&6): VC points out that there are already sufficient EU regulations, namely the EU Directives 98/24/EC and 89/391/EEC "on the protection of the health and safety of workers from the risks related to chemical agents at work".

These would be implemented in all sectors (chemical industry, hazardous goods, noise protection) because fines would also be imposed. But not in aviation.

Therefore, no legal regulations would have to be changed or newly drawn up. Only existing regulations would have to be observed. But: "Neither the licensing authorities check compliance, nor the supervisory authorities see themselves obliged to do so." quote VC.

Here are the documents:

• Scientific Service: Measures against so-called Fume Events
• previous Bundestag document Precautions for the prevention of Fume Events. On p. 6  the reference can be found, that the EASA denies a connection between Fume Events and health consequences, because a study done by the Cranford University in 2011 on 100 flights (in words: one hundred) with five „large aircraft types "could not prove any so-called fume events with health-damaging concentrations".

• EU Directive 98/24
• EU Directive 89/391

Occupational Diseases in Court: Only 10% of all cases are successful

Last year the Federal Government had „no idea“ when they answered the LEFT Party (printed matter 18/13543) "due to lack of statistic data by the DGUV", regarding the question how many cases exist that have actually received occupational ill health acknowledgment before the Federal Social Court, thus were successful,  or failed.

Now, all of a sudden, the Federal Government, in the person of Parliamentary State Secretary (BMAS), Ms Kerstin GRIESE (SPD) announced in an answer to the Greens (printed matter 19/4093 - see entry v. 18.9.):

"For decades the decisions of the accident insurance institutions have been confirmed in about 90% of the Federal Social Court proceedings. From this "the quality of the experts employed and the administrative procedures" can be seen.

We have a somewhat different view of things, as we have documented in many examples (www.ansTageslicht.de/Letzel; www.ansTageslicht.de/Lehnert; www.ansTageslicht.de/BK1317 etc.).

We have therefore added  thefollowing section to the chapter "What can one do?" (WKMT): "In Court". There you will find information on how to proceed when you wish to reject an expert, or his expert opinion because of "bad expertise“,  and if the judge refuses this, how to reject the judge. In the latter case, it is not the "bias" that is important, but the potential "concern of bias".

That this does not work in most cases is due to the fact that neither the judges nor most lawyers are familiar with the right of bias.

We can help and give tips & hints: at www.ansTageslicht.de/WKMT

The Federal Government responds to the „small inquiry“ from „BÜNDNIS 90/DIE GRÜNEN“ (Green Party):

Following our publications at the end of May, THE GREEN PARTY wanted to know from the Federal Government whether they saw a need for action in the statutory accident insurance system, in particular regarding the DGUV, and if so, what?

The answer given by the Federal Government, represented by Kerstin GRIESE (SPD), Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (BMAS): "No need for reform of accident insurance".

We take a critical look at the most important answers at www.ansTageslicht.de/wieweiter.

The Süddeutsche Zeitung (September 18th) is highlightening "Teilsieg für Menschen, die der Job krank machte"