Comment by repiret

There is a large adult population with undiagnosed and untreated ADHD. A generation ago that population was even higher. A bunch of them are pilots.

So then the question is, if in a professional pilot and I think I might have ADHD, do I follow up on that hunch? Of course not, because a diagnosis would cost me my career.

There’s good research to show that stimulants reduce the rate of car crashes in people with ADHD. I have no doubt that if we encouraged pilots to seek ADHD treatment, it would improve safety.

IMO the diagnoses that should exclude someone from flying are those that could cause them to become suddenly incapacitated. For everything else, we can just test whether someone can safely fly an airplane, which we already regularly do for pilots.