ADHD and military flying...

[Doggtyred]

I am asking this out of curiosity mainly, and chose to do it in open forum rather than just PM Doc Bruce..

We've had endless threads about how Johnny gets "diagnosed" with ADD or ADHD and put on meds as a child or teenager... usually by a family practitioner or pediatrician... then when Johnny decides to become a pilot and goes to get his medical, he finds out that he's been majorly screwed.... And has to undergo an expensive battery of testing to prove or disprove the original diagnosis.

Instead of a private pilots license.. what happens when Johnny wants to join the military, or go to the Service Academies or ROTC... If they want to be in the military or military aviation pipelines, what sort of hurdles does this present?

 

[Fearless Tower]

Instead of a private pilots license.. what happens when Johnny wants to join the military, or go to the Service Academies or ROTC... If they want to be in the military or military aviation pipelines, what sort of hurdles does this present?

Pretty much the same as the FAA....once you have that diagnosis, you are out of Schlitz and most people aren't going to spend the time/money to get it overturned in order to join. It is also not limited to flying. Pretty much rules out any military service. The only place that might take an ADHD case would be the Army (they still need bodies bad enough that their standards are lower).

Right now, the AF, Navy and USMC are looking for any reason to reject folks and even kicking people out. We just had a kid get medically separated for ADHD. He was already in and went to medical for something unrelated and they diagnosed him with ADHD and started the outprocessing. Sign of the times.

 

[Velocity173]

Pretty much the same as the FAA....once you have that diagnosis, you are out of Schlitz and most people aren't going to spend the time/money to get it overturned in order to join. It is also not limited to flying. Pretty much rules out any military service. The only place that might take an ADHD case would be the Army (they still need bodies bad enough that their standards are lower).

Right now, the AF, Navy and USMC are looking for any reason to reject folks and even kicking people out. We just had a kid get medically separated for ADHD. He was already in and went to medical for something unrelated and they diagnosed him with ADHD and started the outprocessing. Sign of the times.

While generally Army standards are lower, right now they have acceptance rates around 30 %. Medical, moral, and age waivers right now are nearly impossible to get. They don't have a need for bodies anymore with no wars to fight. I've got friends being forced out because they can't get promoted. Luckily for me I got picked up pre 9/11 time and am already retired.

 

[Florida Cracker]

ADHD is the biggest scam since the stimulus package. It is a crock of **** made up by psychiatrists, to sell drugs, get funds and allow a whole new set of victims to be identified and exploited.

 

[Doggtyred]

ADHD is the biggest scam since the stimulus package. It is a crock of **** made up by psychiatrists, to sell drugs, get funds and allow a whole new set of victims to be identified and exploited.

Thats really great you feel that way. Anything of value to contribute towards the original question?

 

[Captain]

ADHD is the biggest scam since the stimulus package. It is a crock of **** made up by psychiatrists, to sell drugs, get funds and allow a whole new set of victims to be identified and exploited.

Nicely played sir. Insulting an entire profession, millions of families, AND a majority political party and that was just in the first sentence.

 

[Florida Cracker]

Nicely played sir. Insulting an entire profession, millions of families, AND a majority political party and that was just in the first sentence.

Read up on how ADHD came into being. There were no real tests, just a "consensus" among a bunch of headshrinkers.

 

[bbchien]

Read up on how ADHD came into being. There were no real tests, just a "consensus" among a bunch of headshrinkers.

Nope, he doesn't. He'd rather throw molotov cocktails.
*****
To give you an example of how competitive a flight slot is, if you already have the diagnosis, you're out.

If you don't, and get into the last pool before the ~400 slots are assigned, you get....the same neuropsych eval that you would as a civilian, and if you've got it, you're.........out!

This basically means only academy graduates can get the slots, anyway. Now, you can ask about academy spots.....
*****

Cracker, you're probably unaware that the twelve cognitive areas of function that we can measure, are statistically validated against large population norms. Hardly a crock. Now how it's done in the community, that a crying shame.

 

[Florida Cracker]

Nope, he doesn't. He'd rather throw molotov cocktails.
*****
To give you an example of how competitive a flight slot is, if you already have the diagnosis, you're out.

If you don't, and get into the last pool before the ~400 slots are assigned, you get....the same neuropsych eval that you would as a civilian, and if you've got it, you're.........out!

This basically means only academy graduates can get the slots, anyway. Now, you can ask about academy spots.....
*****

Cracker, you're probably unaware that the twelve cognitive areas of function that we can measure, are statistically validated against large population norms. Hardly a crock. Now how it's done in the community, that a crying shame.

Say what you like. ADHD is a silly diagnosis with a stupid set of drugs. Kids end up stoned and all because schools can get more funds if they get a "diagnosis' that kid is ADHD. If not for the money angel, kind of like MMGW, ADHD would not exist.

 

[bbchien]

Say what you like. ADHD is a silly diagnosis with a stupid set of drugs. Kids end up stoned and all because schools can get more funds if they get a "diagnosis' that kid is ADHD. If not for the money angel, kind of like MMGW, ADHD would not exist.

You're talking to the choir. However it would STILL exist. There are people with this condition. Just not as many as title 9 school reimbursement would lead us to belive, and parents who think "take a pill and do better (even just for exam week) is "how to get Johnny ahead".

"To anger a conservative lie to him. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth."

So, I'm telling the scientific truth. According to your own sigline, you must be a liberal.

No, the "whole thing" is not a crock.

 

[Captain]

If a disease is over diagnosed then I'd say that is a doctor issue coupled with an out of control pharmaceutical industry. Maybe we should start by stop allowing drugs to be advertised to the general public?

 

[Captain]

Prescription drugs I mean. I don't care if they advertise aspirin or other OTC drugs.

 

[Florida Cracker]

You're talking to the choir. However it would STILL exist. There are people with this condition. Just not as many as title 9 school reimbursement would lead us to belive, and parents who think "take a pill and do better (even just for exam week) is "how to get Johnny ahead".


So, I'm telling the scientific truth. According to your own sigline, you must be a liberal.

No, the "whole thing" is not a crock.

In deference to your sensitivities, I will reframe my argument.

The entire machine built around enlarging the number of people "diagnosed" with ADHD is a crock of ****.

Feel better?

 

[douglas393]

If a disease is over diagnosed then I'd say that is a doctor issue coupled with an out of control pharmaceutical industry. Maybe we should start by stop allowing drugs to be advertised to the general public?

I tried to find a post to that was most appropriate to tag to and maybe I should not even post as this is getting off the subject of the thread(as that has never occurred before) and may even been SZ area. However, ADHD is not the only accepted diagnosis out there with spurious at best criterion. There are a slew of them and the problem is not a doctor issue coupled with an out of control pharmaceutical industry as much as it is a population of people in a country where often better living through chemistry is a way of life coupled with a physician's fear of sanction if they do not treat patients as customers(my dad owned a small corner grocery store where he had a saying taped on his cash register "the customer is always right"). This pathological paradigm has been supported and propagated by the government, the legal industrial monster, and the AMA, and does nothing to help doctors or the patients they want to treat.

Other ADHD like diagnosis include chronic fatique syndrome, Epstein Barr virus, fibromyalgia, the whole multitude of chronic pain syndromes, ...
In many of these diagnosis there is a number of people who have true pathophysiological disorders, however, the vast majority of those diagnosed with it are diagnosis of convenience. This unfortunately not only occurs in these "pesudodiagnosis", but sometimes in true diagnosis which have extremely clear criteria for example the treatment of patients with pseudoseizures with anticonvulsants.

So before we rip apart the pharmaceutical companies(who I have no great respect for) and the physicians(who work under worsening and worsening conditions) lets really see where the problem lies.

 

[Captain]

Well, you did remind me of another culprit... Lawyers.

Another reason doctors are so ready to prescribe is the ever present fear of litigation from an entire industry of lawyers ready to wrest blood from any stone.

 

[N801BH]

....The only place that might take an ADHD case would be the Army (they still need bodies bad enough that their standards are lower).

Right now, the AF, Navy and USMC are looking for any reason to reject folks and even kicking people out. We just had a kid get medically separated for ADHD. He was already in and went to medical for something unrelated and they diagnosed him with ADHD and started the outprocessing. Sign of the times.

Just wait till North Korea or Iraq starts throwing nukes..... The military will start taking ANYONE who has a pulse ... And some who don't.....

ps... To keep it on topic.... Just this week several networks had big stories on how ADHD is the newest scam hitting the government disabilities pay out....... As a Nation.... we are TOAST... IMHO.

 

[Florida Cracker]

Nicely played sir. Insulting an entire profession, millions of families, AND a majority political party and that was just in the first sentence.

Father of ADHD Admitted in Final Interview That Disease Was “Fictitious”

Bradlee Dean
ADHD is a prime example of a fictitious disease.”


These were the words of Leon Eisenberg, the “scientific father of ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder),” in his last interview before his death.
Leon Eisenberg made a luxurious living off of his “fictitious disease,” thanks to pharmaceutical sales. Coincidentally, he received the “Ruane Prize for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Research. He has been a leader in child psychiatry for more than 40 years through his work in pharmacological trials, research, teaching, and social policy and for his theories of autism and social medicine,” according to Psychiatric News.
Yes, it was even admitted that they are his THEORIES. The medical industry is using the guise of helping children to depersonalize and disconnect our children from a healthy, normal upbringing. Parents are placing their children on these drugs and subjecting them to what the world has to offer, when in fact all these children are looking for is their parents in hopes of being the blessing that God intended them to be.
In the United States, 1 out of 10 boys among 10-year-olds takes medication for ADHD on a daily basis … with increasing tendency. And with the help of Teen Screen surveys in public schools, they are attempting to set up the student for the fall.
American psychologist Lisa Cosgrove and others reveal the facts in their study “Financial Ties between DSM-IV Panel Members and the Pharmaceutical Industry.” They found that “Of the 170 DSM panel members 95 (56 percent) had one or more financial associations with companies in the pharmaceutical industry. One hundred percent of the members of the panels on ‘Mood Disorders’ and ‘Schizophrenia and Other Psychotic Disorders’ had financial ties to drug companies.”

And they are reaping major benefits off of this “fictitious disease.” For example, the assistant director of the Pediatric Psychopharmacology Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital and associate professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School received “$1 million in earnings from drug companies between 2000 and 2007.”

This raises the following question:

Are they safe?
Read the antidepressant black-box warning for yourselves, and you will be alarmed by the side effects listed on the inserts:

• Confusion
• Depersonalization
• Hostility
• Hallucinations
• Manic reactions
• Suicidal ideation
• Loss of consciousness
• Delusions
• Feeling drunk
• Alcohol abuse
• Homicidal ideation

Why would any parent subject their children to drugs with such dangerous side effects?


Dr. Edward C. Hamlyn, a founding member of the Royal College of General Practitioners, in 1998 stated, “ADHD is fraud intended to justify starting children on a life of drug addiction.”
http://dcclothesline.com/2013/05/25...-final-interview-that-disease-was-fictitious/

 

[Threefingeredjack]

I am asking this out of curiosity mainly, and chose to do it in open forum rather than just PM Doc Bruce..

We've had endless threads about how Johnny gets "diagnosed" with ADD or ADHD and put on meds as a child or teenager... usually by a family practitioner or pediatrician... then when Johnny decides to become a pilot and goes to get his medical, he finds out that he's been majorly screwed.... And has to undergo an expensive battery of testing to prove or disprove the original diagnosis.

Instead of a private pilots license.. what happens when Johnny wants to join the military, or go to the Service Academies or ROTC... If they want to be in the military or military aviation pipelines, what sort of hurdles does this present?

It would be a third strike before getting to the plate.

 

[Threefingeredjack]

Father of ADHD Admitted in Final Interview That Disease Was “Fictitious”

Bradlee Dean
ADHD is a prime example of a fictitious disease.”


These were the words of Leon Eisenberg, the “scientific father of ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder),” in his last interview before his death.
Leon Eisenberg made a luxurious living off of his “fictitious disease,” thanks to pharmaceutical sales. Coincidentally, he received the “Ruane Prize for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Research. He has been a leader in child psychiatry for more than 40 years through his work in pharmacological trials, research, teaching, and social policy and for his theories of autism and social medicine,” according to Psychiatric News.
Yes, it was even admitted that they are his THEORIES. The medical industry is using the guise of helping children to depersonalize and disconnect our children from a healthy, normal upbringing. Parents are placing their children on these drugs and subjecting them to what the world has to offer, when in fact all these children are looking for is their parents in hopes of being the blessing that God intended them to be.
In the United States, 1 out of 10 boys among 10-year-olds takes medication for ADHD on a daily basis … with increasing tendency. And with the help of Teen Screen surveys in public schools, they are attempting to set up the student for the fall.
American psychologist Lisa Cosgrove and others reveal the facts in their study “Financial Ties between DSM-IV Panel Members and the Pharmaceutical Industry.” They found that “Of the 170 DSM panel members 95 (56 percent) had one or more financial associations with companies in the pharmaceutical industry. One hundred percent of the members of the panels on ‘Mood Disorders’ and ‘Schizophrenia and Other Psychotic Disorders’ had financial ties to drug companies.”

And they are reaping major benefits off of this “fictitious disease.” For example, the assistant director of the Pediatric Psychopharmacology Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital and associate professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School received “$1 million in earnings from drug companies between 2000 and 2007.”

This raises the following question:

Are they safe?
Read the antidepressant black-box warning for yourselves, and you will be alarmed by the side effects listed on the inserts:

• Confusion
• Depersonalization
• Hostility
• Hallucinations
• Manic reactions
• Suicidal ideation
• Loss of consciousness
• Delusions
• Feeling drunk
• Alcohol abuse
• Homicidal ideation

Why would any parent subject their children to drugs with such dangerous side effects?


Dr. Edward C. Hamlyn, a founding member of the Royal College of General Practitioners, in 1998 stated, “ADHD is fraud intended to justify starting children on a life of drug addiction.”
http://dcclothesline.com/2013/05/25...-final-interview-that-disease-was-fictitious/

FC...... you seem to be the poster child for ADD. No matter what the topic you can turn it into a tirade on your favorite political topics. Concentrate. The question was "What if I was diagnosed"..... doesn't matter what the status of the condition is in the arena of medical debate, on the ground it is an accepted diagnosis and the OP's question was a valid one. Keep your politics in the Spin Zone and let those who want to have reasonable focused debate do so.

 

[RJM62]

Being a Libertarian, I'm not a big one for new laws.

But one I would like to see would be a law forbidding the prescription of any drug to a child for ADHD unless the entire gamut of tests had been performed, by both a psychiatrist and a psychologist who are not affiliated in any way with the child's school district, and who will not be involved in the child's treatment.

In other words, their only job would be to exhaustively test the child and arrive at (or rule out) a diagnosis of ADHD.

As I've said before, I have no doubt that ADHD exists. But I also think it's exceedingly rare, and that most diagnoses are bogus. It's beyond unconscionable to medicate kids with powerful drugs, and label them with a condition that will close doors to them for the rest of their lives, unless we are as certain as possible that they actually have that condition. Anything short of this is simply government-sanctioned child abuse.

-Rich

 

[SCCutler]

Being a Libertarian, I'm not a big one for new laws.

But one I would like to see would be a law forbidding the prescription of any drug to a child for ADHD unless the entire gamut of tests had been performed, by both a psychiatrist and a psychologist who are not affiliated in any way with the child's school district, and who will not be involved in the child's treatment.

In other words, their only job would be to exhaustively test the child and arrive at (or rule out) a diagnosis of ADHD.

As I've said before, I have no doubt that ADHD exists. But I also think it's exceedingly rare, and that most diagnoses are bogus. It's beyond unconscionable to medicate kids with powerful drugs, and label them with a condition that will close doors to them for the rest of their lives, unless we are as certain as possible that they actually have that condition. Anything short of this is simply government-sanctioned child abuse.

-Rich

Place me on the, "What he said" list.

Prior to Tommy's third grade year, the school district tried to issue an ambush diagnosis of ADHD, the benefit of which to them would have been (1) increased funding, and (2) relief from the requirement to teach him to any measurable expectation of success.

After a comprehensive test by a skilled and specialized physician, no hint of ADHD. None.

How many parents, less willing or equipped to challenge authority (there were six people from the school district administration there to "tell" my wife how it was going to be) have simply accepted, meekly, the DX issued by a corrupt system and thus, forever impounded their child's possibilities?

 

[woodstock]

Pretty much the same as the FAA....once you have that diagnosis, you are out of Schlitz and most people aren't going to spend the time/money to get it overturned in order to join. It is also not limited to flying. Pretty much rules out any military service. The only place that might take an ADHD case would be the Army (they still need bodies bad enough that their standards are lower).

Right now, the AF, Navy and USMC are looking for any reason to reject folks and even kicking people out. We just had a kid get medically separated for ADHD. He was already in and went to medical for something unrelated and they diagnosed him with ADHD and started the outprocessing. Sign of the times.

ANY military service?

Well, if they bring the draft back, I can see a whole slew of people signing up to be diagosed with ADHD. Much simpler than moving to Canada.

 

[bflynn]

Re: ADH D and military flying...

PRight now, the AF, Navy and USMC are looking for any reason to reject folks and even kicking people out. We just had a kid get medically separated for ADHD. He was already in and went to medical for something unrelated and they diagnosed him with ADHD and started the outprocessing. Sign of the times.

Are you sure they weren't just looking for a reason to outprocess him? When a slackbag gets in, you want to let them out nicely if you can. Sometimes they don't let you, but you don't need to drop the hammer on everyone who isn't fit. ADHD might have been an excuse. It wouldn't have been the first time I've seen it happen...when you're good, they'll figure out ways to make to work. When you're not good...well, no one makes the effort. If you're outright bad, you can count on being pencil whipped right out of the military.

 

[bflynn]

FC...... you seem to be the poster child for ADD. No matter what the topic you can turn it into a tirade on your favorite political topics.

That isn't ADD...lots of other possibilities, but the inability to concentrate, no.

 

[bbchien]

Well, with the intense competition for the aviation billets basically limiting the candidates to academy grads, all of the candidates will go through the military version of the "P&P", the civil version of which I attach here.

If you made it through the academy, you sure don't have ADD or ADHD, for sure. The academic waters flow wayyyy to swiftly for a guy who has to reorganize information to process it.

Even if by some miracle the guy /woman made it through, the attached neurocog battery will nail the guy for sure.