In a first for France’s aviation industry, a court in Bayonne has recognised breast cancer as an occupational disease. The landmark ruling came in July this year after Sophie Lainault, a former flight attendant who is now in cancer remission, took her case to court.
The verdict also ensures that any further treatment she may require will be fully reimbursed by the French health authorities, BBC News reported. The ruling, seen by Agence France-Presse , recognised the occupational origin of Ms. Lainault’s cancer. The court highlighted the role of night shifts, exposure to ionising radiation at high altitudes and passive smoking, finding that these factors could have contributed to Ms. Lainault’s breast cancer. It also noted the absence of any genetic or lifestyle-related factors that could otherwise explain the cancer. Ms.
The ruling will allow her to take early retirement, she said. Lainault’s lawyer, Elisabeth Leroux, said the court’s decision sets a legal precedent. “In France the link between breast cancer and certain hazards has been established for a number of professions, such as nurses… but this is the first time for an airhostess.”
Her fight led to the court recognising her cancer as an occupational disease. Previously, in 2023, another French breast cancer survivor, a nurse, underwent a similar legal battle. She had worked night shifts for 28 years. A study published on August 17 this year in JAMA Internal Medicine found that flight attendants and pilots in the United States had the highest and second-highest proportions of deaths from radiation-related cancers among the 503 occupations studied. The team, led by first author Vishal Patel, an HMS clinical fellow in surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, examined nearly 13 million U.S. death certificates from 2020 to 2024, covering 503 occupations, including 14,000 pilots and 7,000 flight attendants. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, aircrew accrue an estimated 3 to 6 millisieverts per year of cosmic radiation, depending on flight paths, an order of magnitude above the estimated 0.4 millisieverts received annually by an average air traveller taking 10 cross-country round trips a year.
According to the U.S.
