Hell, taking medication or not, if you have had a diagnosis in the past (and didn't lie on your medical history), merely having current symptoms is grounds for your FAA medical certificate being deferred.
The fact that somebody can be completely undiagnosed, untreated, and potentially self-medicated, will get their medical certificate issued while those seeking treatment and function at the same level as their peers get deferred is madness. I completely understand concern being warranted, given a majority of airline accidents can, unfortunately, be attributed to pilot error, but it shows a maddening lack of understanding of the condition by the agency. Especially when their justification for telling AME's to defer individuals actively taking ADHD medication has nothing to do with the condition itself, but some bullshit that it actively increases cognitive deficits? Give me a break, I'd rather they just be honest, "we don't trust people who need stimulants to properly follow routine checklist procedures that are the bread and butter of a commercial pilot's job."
> but some bullshit that it actively increases cognitive deficits?
It doesn't look like obvious "bullshit". A number of ADHD medications are well-known intoxicating substances; it's not unfathomable that they might induce some kind of cognitive or behavioral impairment (not necessarily the same kind one might get diagnosed for, either).
Sure, but do you really want people flying a plane when their performance might depend on how they happen to react to that kind of medication? It's just one more thing that can go wrong in so many ways. And it's not like flying airline routes is a job that would even appeal to the typical ADHD-diagnosed person - like GP said, its "bread and butter" is sticking to boring checklists. There might be some silly glamorous aspect to it but that's not a good reason why one should want to be a pilot in the first place.
As it stands, many medical conditions that require maintenance medication that may cause side-effects you wouldn't want when you're airbore don't disqualify you from being a pilot. The entire point of the FAA medical examination isn't to make sure you are a perfect specimen of human health and have no issues whatsoever, that would disqualify a hell of a lot of pilots from flying.
> And it's not like flying airline routes is a job that would even appeal to the typical ADHD-diagnosed person - like you said, its "bread and butter" is sticking to boring checklists.
My ADHD diagnosis is not a reflection of my personality, it's a chemical imbalance of my brain that prevents things non-ADHD individuals would consider rewarding from feeling that way to me. I fucking love spending hours flying an A320 around in Flight Simulator, and I literally go through most of the same checklist items that commercial pilots do in a game, just to fly some virtual cargo around in return for imaginary internet money on FSAirlines.
Do I want to be a commercial pilot? No, I've got a pretty good job as a SWE/SRE that requires substantially less bullshit, and the vision in my left eye can't be corrected enough to pass a FAA ME for a commercial pilots license anyway. But I will be absolutely damned if I let somebody say it wouldn't appeal to me anyway just because I have ADHD - like I don't have enough bullshit checklist work to go through in any other job.
The military used to give pilots straight up meth. They still do give their pilots performance enhancing drugs. How many pilots fly drunk? Why are the checklists not done and confirmed digitally instead of relying on fallible human pilots, regardless of i how much Adderall they're on?
If this were really about safety, there is so much other actionable low hanging fruit to make things safer. Looking at the TSA and ask the security theater there. It's not surprising.
The fact that somebody can be completely undiagnosed, untreated, and potentially self-medicated, will get their medical certificate issued while those seeking treatment and function at the same level as their peers get deferred is madness. I completely understand concern being warranted, given a majority of airline accidents can, unfortunately, be attributed to pilot error, but it shows a maddening lack of understanding of the condition by the agency. Especially when their justification for telling AME's to defer individuals actively taking ADHD medication has nothing to do with the condition itself, but some bullshit that it actively increases cognitive deficits? Give me a break, I'd rather they just be honest, "we don't trust people who need stimulants to properly follow routine checklist procedures that are the bread and butter of a commercial pilot's job."