This doesnt sound accurate. I have trekked the Himalayas for over a decade - the risks of AMS are very real. Two people I have trekked with have died due to AMS on separate himalayan treks - both had trekked multiple times before, and were well aware of the risks. Both the fatalities were around 12000-14000 feet - much below the Everest Base Camp trek. When AMS hits, you need to descend - as fast as possible, with whatever means you have at your disposal. Otherwise you have unknowingly entered a Russian Roulette.
And Diamox is used as a preventative course for AMS - alongside excessive water intake - this is standard guidelines in all high altitude himalayan treks.
In aviation rules you can have passengers at 12k ft without oxygen for an unlimited amount of time. The crew needs to use oxygen if you're between 10k and 13k for more than 30 minutes. Above 13k both crew and passengers must use oxygen immediately (EASA rules, FAA is different).
So they seem to consider 12k to not be dangerous to passengers.
But the temperature does make it worse. Your body is trying to generate heat, which increases oxygen demand. Your blood vessels are constricting, so circulation is less efficient, limiting oxygen distribution. All together, this creates all sorts of health risks.
Sitting in a comfy plane seat browsing the internet is not the same thing. Besides, even healthy adults just sitting can experience mild hypoxia effects above about 10k ft - fatigue, mild cognitive effects, headaches. But if you're just sitting, it's generally tolerable. Of course, you don't want pilots working in those conditions for any length of time.
The problems come if you haven't acclimatized.
> In at least one case cited in the investigation, baking powder was mixed into food to make tourists physically unwell.
A small amount won't make a different, it'll just stimulate a bit more H+ production from your stomach's proton pumps.
Edit: The article I read claims the scam involved baking powder, which makes even less sense given that it's even more noticeable, bitter and metallic.
It's "not that high", but people frequently do get AMS at those attitudes or even lower.
The highest peak in the contiguous United States is Mt. Whitney at ~14.5k feet
Many peaks in the western US are in that range. Lots more with several exceeding if you include Alaska in “the western US”.
I got Acute Mountain Sickness at just 11k feet. Headache, nausea, dizziness, fatigue. I passed out until hitting the ground woke me up. I was very disoriented and vulnerable. If someone had told me that I had to get to a hospital or I'd die they could have led me like a tame goat. And they could be right. If you have high-altitude cerebral or pulmonary edema it is life threatening.
A guide getting a kickback can make it a lot more likely just by cutting short the boring acclimatization time.
So while it might feel like the insurers were getting fleeced, it was almost certainly the insured who didn't get the copter ride.
As a precaution (having read about it on forums) I had taken an additional insurance from a French shop specialized in hiking and mountaineering (le Vieux Campeur) to cover more events.
Good thing I did because I ended up having to be evacuated for something that was initially considered as acute altitude sickness and turned out to be a lot more life threatening once in the hospital.
Pics/video: https://www.instagram.com/p/DBTpLGtydZW/
Why would it be fixed? Insurance companies aren’t willing to invest in oversight, and everyone else profit, there is no incentive for changing the system.
It's basically a way for everyone to get more tourists dollars, which is one of Nepals primary exports.
However, if they all gang up together they might do something - but that can cause other issues (a local insurer becomes the only insurance available, etc).
What is less discussed is what happened to people who were able to identify the scam and refused to let it happen.
The new parliament is a radical departure in many ways. Its very hollywoodish if you happen to read the development.
It percolated up. It’s usually what happens with corruption. If lower levels are found out to have a lucrative scheme, the higher ups (auditors, police, legislators) make a big fuss about stumping it publicly, but behind the scenes go and ask for a cut.
On the whole, there is finite capacity of certain assets, like helicopters. If the emergency carrying capacity is X and true emergencies are .6 X then there is spoiled capacity of .4 X, in which fraudulent emergencies are placed, keeping everyone in the system whole so that when true emergencies approach .9 X there is no need for fraud. This follows the "optimal amount of fraud is non-zero" and eliminating this fraud might remove the margin needed for the system to exist at all.
An anecdote tells of the British government's bounty on dead Indian cobras
giving locals the perverse incentive to start breeding the snakes, to be able
to kill more of them and collect more bounty
Start of AMS like symptoms can easily be mistaken for walking fatigue and dehydration. It is easier to identify if you are at rest, but during the trek that is seldom the case. So when you actually start realizing something is wrong, you already are at an elevated risk. The only thing that works in these cases is to descend and as fast as possible at that.
Considering the fact that AMS will absolutely and a 100% kill you if you play around with it, guides presenting trekkers with an option of helicopter rescue is not that bad, at least if you look at the worst that can happen.
The amount of each incident is fairly low, and probably goes a long way to funding the local community.
But the number of incidents is nuts - well over 1000 per year.
I have no idea how many of those people have to buy insurance.
Source: https://everestcamptrek.com/how-many-people-hike-to-everest-...
The only ill effect I can find from overconsumption is a "tingly sensation on the tongue". Of course, that doesn't mean the 'poisoner' wasn't ignorant of this, and genuinely did it trying to make them sick. Or maybe they simply said, "If you feel your tongue tingling, YOU ARE DYING!!!".
The creator certainly got pretty crook from ingesting baking soda
Make coverage void in the Himalayas... problem solved
And Sagarmartha national park and the whole valley up to EBC is an amazingly beautiful part of the world.
For other mountains with dry summits in the summers, I would agree: the effects of erosion are frightening
The saying is that the snowpack gives back everything you put in it.