[edrxty]

Oh boy...

Here's a good one: the FAA categorically prevents any pilots from taking any psychiatric medication (minor caveats but the point holds in practice), in particular for depression, anxiety, and ADHD, all of which are extremely common in the airlines. As such, everyone just hides their diagnosis and waits until they snap because the alternative is permanently losing a job they took out hundreds of thousands in loans to get. Others pay out of pocket for treatment under false names so the FAA is currently trying to hunt them down.

Before anyone says the usual stuff about not wanting their pilots on meds, the medications are safe to fly on and much safer than the alternative, the FAA just hasn't updated their psych guidelines since Freud was the standard because any change would open whichever bureaucrat up to being hauled in front of Congress for the next accident regardless of culpability. Additionally the medication standards are also inherited from ICAO so even if we wanted to change, we'd need to convince the likes of China and the Saudis (both major stakeholders) that they can come out from the rock they live under and accept modern psychological science.

[raverbashing]

Ugh, this is absurd

And I agree, it is safer to just get the drugs. Maybe some very specific drugs should be excluded, but that's it

Same with leaded fuel and some very old mechanical gizmos in planes.

[ijhuygft776]

> FAA categorically prevents any pilots from taking any psychiatric medication

Some of those medications can alter you in a big way... at least many of those medications should be on the list...

[refurb]

Seems like the solution is to change the regulations (if warranted), not say "oh it's bad when data is used to flag pilots who are violating regulations".

[hollerith]

Thank you!

[helpfulContrib]

> the medications are safe to fly on

Citation?

[logicchains]

>we'd need to convince the likes of China and the Saudis (both major stakeholders) that they can come out from the rock they live under and accept modern psychological science.

Giving how overwhelmingly worse the mental health is of people, especially young people, in America, I can see why the Chinese and Saudis are so reluctant to accept western psychological "science".

[edrxty]

We're talking about two different things: the cause of mental health issues and the treatment of mental health issues. The US is pretty modern at treating them and pretty outstanding at causing them.

[hamhock666]

Yes but it seems like the treatment is addressing the symptoms and not the outstanding source of them as you say. We are slapping band-aids on an open wound

[1920musicman]

As a person who experienced both the symptoms and the treatment in the US I can assure you that it’s better to receive band-aid treatment than nothing at all.

Treatments could be—and should be—better, but comparing US to countries where psychological issues are being ignored and stigmatized is not to the benefit of the latter.

[1920musicman]

Ha, it's like saying there are no gay people in Saudi Arabia. If having psychological issues is extremely stigmatized by the society don't expect the stats to reflect reality in any trustworthy sense.

[wyre]

I would hope that the Chinese and Saudi's realize the youth in America's mental health is largely due to America's unique flavor of corporatacracy and the climate crisis. If you think this is wrong you either don't know or understand American youth or you're being willfully ignorant.

[za3faran]

What does the climate crisis have to do with the drastic mental health crisis that is present in the US/Canada? Genuine question.

[pseudalopex]

https://magazine.hms.harvard.edu/articles/climate-anxiety

[parineum]

What's it like to do a young woman in Saudi Arabia or a young Muslim in China?

[SpaghettiCthulu]

That's completely irrelevant to what OP was saying.

[ceejayoz]

No, it isn’t. Mental health is a lot easier if you don’t care about large portions of the population.