ST. JOHN'S — Plane cabins should be as pet-free as they are peanut-free, says Canada's leading doctor's group.
The Canadian Medical Association voted in favour Tuesday of supporting a ban on all pets, except for certified service animals such as guide dogs, travelling inside aircraft cabins on all Canadian passenger planes.
B.C. physician Mark Schonfeld says current federal regulations allowing major national airlines to accept pets in cabins are posing serious threats to people allergic to animals.
Cats and small dogs are the animals most likely to be found onboard, though some airlines allow birds and rabbits as well.
"While airlines argue that this is a great convenience for pet owners, the practice actually exposes our patients, and their passengers, to significant allergens that can make the journey very difficult — and occasionally quite seriously ill as a result," Schonfeld said Tuesday at the doctors' group's annual assembly in St. John's.
"People have to travel with EpiPens, adrenalin, bronchodilators and antibiotics. Some people end up having their entire holidays ruined."
Schonfeld said allergies to pet allergens are now classified by the World Health Organization as a disability.
He said pet allergies are triggered by animal dander, saliva, sebum and fur. "These allergens are constantly shed into the air," he said, where they cling to seats, carpets and aisles and are spread by air circulating systems.
Passengers with severe allergies can end up with serious allergic reactions; some end up needing treatment in an intensive care.
Delegates voted 93 per cent in favour of the motion.
One Vancouver doctor said he travelled recently with a dog under his airplane seat. "My wife, by the end of two hours, was so asthmatic I had to take her to an emergency (room) in California," he told the assembled delegates. "It makes no sense that we have let this happen because people want to take their pets," he said. Pets can be carried in a pressurized hold in the cargo bay, he said "They should not be up where it risks people's lives."
One doctor whose family has peanut allergies — as well as cat and dog allergies — said it wasn't the CMA's place to be decreeing what should or should not be permitted on planes, or any other mode of public travel for that matter.
But outgoing CMA president Dr. Jeff Turnbull said that it is entirely the organization's role and responsibility "to speak out for the health of Canadians."
For people with severe allergies to animals, it's an issue of personal safety, he said. "This is not an issue of convenience. This is an issue of the health of Canadians."
Air Canada reversed its prohibition against allowing pets on board in 2009 because of competition from WestJet, which, according to an editorial published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, has pets on about one-quarter of its flights.
The editorial said 10 per cent of Canadians suffer from a pet allergy and should not be forced to subject themselves to an enclosed space filled with animal dander.
"Although uncommon, severe allergic reactions . . . are serious under the best of circumstances," the editorial said. "On an airplane at high altitude and isolated from the access to emergency medical care, the consequences can be much more dangerous."
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I bet you dont own a pet. Thank god as the poor pet would want to run away with just the taught of living with a person like your self. Get a life but not a pet.