The US government has lifted a 70-year-old ban on letting pilots fly while on antidepressants, citing improvements in the drugs and an unforeseen side effect of the restriction: depressed pilots kept flying but just kept their conditions secret.
"Our concern is that they haven’t necessarily been candid," said Federal Aviation Administrator (FAA) Randy Babbitt.
The change in policy is aimed in part at clueing the government in on how many pilots suffer from a disease whose symptoms can include thoughts of suicide, FAA officials said.
How common is the condition among pilots?
About the same percentage as there is among the public, which is up to 10 percent, according to a study last year by Columbia University.
Under the ban, airline and other pilots who suspected they were depressed but wanted or financially needed to fly generally faced a choice: seek no medication for treatment, because doing so would disqualify them, or self-medicate and lie about it on a required medical certification form — a federal crime. Neither, Babbitt said, is acceptable.
"We need to change the culture and remove the stigma associated with depression," Babbitt said.
Under the new policy, pilots who take one of four antidepressants — Prozac, Zoloft, Celexa or Lexapro — or their generic equivalents will be allowed to fly if they have been successfully treated by those medications for a year without side effects that could pose a safety hazard in the cockpit.
The ban had endured because earlier generations of antidepressants caused concerns about side effects, such as drowsiness and seizures, Babbitt said. But a panel of medical experts for the FAA found during two years of research that newer versions don’t cause side effects in everyone. When they do occur, they tend to subside in time.
In addition, the FAA will grant a formof amnesty for pilots who have kept their treatment a secret. The agency will not take civil enforcement action against pilots who, within six months, disclose their diagnoses of depression and treatment.
By David Wilkening
