The FAA lets John Matthew Fabian, who's mugshot is from his DUI on drugs arrest in Oklahoma in 2016 clip pilots wings under the HIMS program but the question is why?
Under FAA Medicals longstanding policy, they are forcing pilots and air traffic controllers to see their chosen hand picked "3rd party contracted" FAA doctors for HIMS evaluations. These Contractors seem to be more interested in protecting their cottage industry and their relationship with the FAA, committing malpractice to holding pilot's hostage to them and the HIMS program.
The Office of Inspector General that oversees the Federal Aviation Administration put out a scathing report a in 2011 stating that the FAA has poor (at best) oversight over the agency's 3rd party contractors, failed to do proper background checks on said contractors, and that the contractors seem to go into business for themselves at not only the expense of clients served (such as pilots with regards the approved medical practitioners) but ultimately a detriment to the safety of the skies itself. https://sites.google.com/site/no2cog/supporting-evidence/oig-audit-of-faa-3rd-party-shows-lack-of-oversight?authuser=0
In the decade since the report was published, nothing substantial has changed within the FAA. Whether it's Boeing 3rd Party Contractors self certifying a design flawed 737Max or these FAA 3rd Party medical practitioners making up problems to hold pilot's and air traffic controllers hostage with detrimental diagnoses whether they are based on actual afflictions or not; meaning committing intentional malpractice of fabricating diagnoses, forcing said pilots and air traffic controllers to keep forking over money on tests to ever get their medicals back which by the way is not guaranteed under the current system. Neither these medical 3rd party contractors nor does the FAA Aeromedical Division itself, AAM-300, present a road map to cross the goalposts unlike with flight training.
The problem with these "FAA Approved" medicals contractors, specifically with the psychologists and psychiatrists is so egregious, that Senior HIMS AME Dr. Brent Blue MD called this out in front of Federal Air Surgeon Dr. Susan Northrup at an AOPA sponsored symposium on pilot mental health at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2022. Dr. Blue said the entire process is archaic, the use of the Cogscreen is inappropriate, and pilots should not be forced to use the FAA's hand picked psychologists and psychiatrists which without Dr. Blue directly stating it, more or less admits the FAA's hand picked 3rd party quacks are biased against the pilots. 7 min 41 seconds https://youtu.be/iNWhpl4DtmA?t=461 to which Northrup could not come up with an answer and she herself had a "cognitive slow" response. Dr. Blue clearly shows that he is aware of how rigged the Cogscreen AE is https://sites.google.com/site/no2cog/supporting-evidence/faa-cognitive-assessment-labels-pilots-with-false-positives-to-adhd and has a real world failure rate of over 70-80%, https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/archive/index.php/t-60252.html due to the way the Cogscreen AE is structured you fail only one section, its considered a total failure. It's software code base dates back to 1987 and runs inconstantly with modern hardware, and many of it's tests are now considered no longer a valid form of testing such as the timed math section https://sites.google.com/site/no2cog/supporting-evidence/us-air-force-white-paper-states-cogscreen-math-problems-must-be-completed-in-35-seconds-otherwise-its-a-fail a practice that has been condemned by math educators and the California Department of Education, https://sites.google.com/site/no2cog/supporting-evidence/california-department-of-education-come-out-against-timed-math-testing especially since each of the three questions was only given 25-35 seconds to complete. This includes the time needed to read the question itself. The test does not tell you only have 2535 seconds, only that it's timed. The test also does not tell you the questions also time out shortly after 35 seconds which it did right when I was about to answer after checking my math multiple times as I was taught. This means missing only one math problem could mean a fail of the entire Cogscreen and denial of an FAA Medical even though 50% of Harvard University students and 80% of students from other universities would fail this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHqyzdWZ57k On top of which the math score baselines have dropped for the population at large since the start of the pandemic https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/american-students-have-math-problem which is more than likely linked to breathing in carbon dioxide saturated air due to the year long mask mandates https://sites.google.com/site/no2cog/supporting-evidence/face-masks-linked-to-increased-carbon-dioxide-inhalation
A rise in CO2 concentration has a direct link to a 50% loss of cognitive ability according to multiple Harvard University Studies https://sites.google.com/site/no2cog/supporting-evidence/carbon-dioxide-concentration-indoors-linked-to-cognitive-loss-according-to-harvard-study?authuser=0 meaning how the math section is scored is obsolete and should no longer be considered valid, especially since most pilots are not forced to take this rigged test or get a ragged psych evaluation to obtain a medical.
The views and criticisms of the Cogscreen by Dr. Blue were consistent with the views of the late Senior AME Dr. Jack Hastings MD who was well respected in the aviation medical field. Dr. Hastings was a major critic of the Cogscreen AE for decades where he went on record stating the test's false positive rate was so high it regularly grounded pilots that were more than capable and should have otherwise been granted "Standard Issue" Unrestricted Medicals. Dr, Hastings in his PowerPoint presentations also stated that the Cogscreen opened up a major can worms with the hired gun psychologists https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LLqx2kPDXED2Lp6XbR5j3fWo00RIPsPi/view
These psychologists would dig decades into a pilots past where they would get a pilot to admit they smoked a couple of joints in college, decades in the past, in order to fit in better or with many academic programs such as fine arts and communications, come across more favorable to the grad students who come up with the grades.https://sites.google.com/site/no2cog/supporting-evidence/faa-cognitive-assessment-labels-pilots-with-false-positives-to-adhd in order to have their medicals revoked. Something the majority of pilots would have in their past that does not affect their flying agility in the present.
FAA views this decades old limited consumption by a pilot even if they smoked a handful of time and haven't done so in decades or drinks maybe once a month, just as much of a substance abuser as someone who actually has a chronic drug and/or alcohol problem . This would mean the FAA would consider Ranking Member of the Senate Aviation Safety Sub Committee for the 117th Congress Senator Ted Cruz https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/ted-cruz-coughs-smoking-pot-n299651, Transportation Secretary who oversees the FAA Pete Buttigieg https://nypost.com/2019/10/24/pete-buttigieg-admits-to-smoking-pot-a-handful-of-times/ and as of this writing VP Kamala Harris
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2019/02/11/kamala-harris-marijuana-radio-int-orig-vstop-bdk.cnn as substance abusers and to be held hostage by the HIMS program. This would also include as stated above most pilots because they had smoked a handful of times in their youth decades before they started flying professionally and had not smoked since becoming pilots. However the FAA only asks on their form 8500 for substance abuse history for the past two years. https://www.aviationmedicine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/FAA-Form-8500-8-GG-Edition-APPLICATION-FOR-AIRMAN-MEDICAL-CERTIFICATE.pdf It's the hand picked psychologists that the FAA demands that only certain pilots have to go see demand in violation of the 14th amendment equal protection clause does the question have to be answered as lifetime use which said questioning in itself is a violation of the 5th Amendment. Another example of the FAA AAM-300 and their 3rd party medical contractors moving the goal posts to hold pilots hostage in the HIMS Program. At the same token John Matthew Fabian's DUI on drugs arrested occurred in 2016 when he was 46 years old and didn't lose his "FAA approved 3rd party medical contractor" status. It also should be asked, would Fabian pass his own assessment or any of these biased tests? Tests that are black boxes which the FAA doesn't release the data for, just like when the FAA is a black box with regards to not releasing the data for their change in cardiac standards https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/faa-wont-divulge-data-behind-pilot-heart-arrhythmia-decision
Dr. Hastings felt that flight training and simulators is a much more accurate way of gauging a pilots actual cognitive ability and feels cognitive testing and psychological profiling has little if any correlation of a pilots actual cognitive ability and these tests should not be used along with digging up minor youthful indiscretions that are not being committed as mature adults against the pilot. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1x2Kamji50asfu-CKcoLCFHZBkJnTrrlD/view
Why that should be pointed out? The FAA published a white paper in 2017 claiming the Cogscreen is 100% accurate when nothing it 100% accurate page 43 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IKLQwNG5EZYFQQ4sG6JTw2lqSssp9jpk/view and many of these documents related to the Cogscreen whether defending or criticizing it can no longer be found on the internet with the exception of the website I had created directly as a result of my FAA medical certificate issue and had the foresight of backup up the pdf personally. As documented below this seems to be a running trend with many white papers that are related to the Cogscreen. A very similar situation happened with the initial published claims of the "100% effectiveness" of the COVID jabs, as well as the coverup of the dangerous side effects. https://twitter.com/DrEliDavid/status/1597841658204213248?t=SADb5MdR9_erFJLOwfzAKQ&s=19 Something only the press confronted outside of Davos when Rebel Media tried to get a statement out of Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla https://twitter.com/ezralevant/status/1615773348759224327 which House Transportation Committee member Thomas Massie tweeted, https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1615922157413961729 If Congress or the Media had been doing their jobs, the CEO of Pfizer would have been asked these questions over a year ago. Thsee very same questions need to be asked by Congress during the hearings for the 2023 FAA Reauthorization Bill regarding the secretive and deceptive process going on with the FAA Aeromedical devision.
This coverup is especially concerning due to the spike from 2020 to present of pilots and air traffic controllers losing their medicals due to archaic and biased testing process that has very little if any correlation to real world performance in the flight deck. Dr. Blue in a publication in August 2022 stated that The FAA has a love affair with the Cogscreen a proprietary computer screening program that the FAA uses as a yes/no test regardless of other evaluations https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2022/august/pilot/flight-md-flying-low#:~:text=The%20new%20policy%20states%20that,medical%20certificate%20without%20further%20evaluation. and went on to further state There is no evidence that it (The Cogscreen) has prevented even one accident in the real world. Dr Blue also stated the FAA antiquated process came from a previous FAA chief psychiatrist who was, in (Dr. Blue's) opinion, also just horrible. His legacy of antiquated evaluation has been a difficult sea to move.
The Cogscreen itself has no right to be proprietary since its creation was funded by the US taxpayer since the test was commissioned by the FAA. Since it's used on US citizens and has no national security justification, there is no legitimate reason to keep the nuts and bolts of the test a secret. In fact that very act is a violation of the 6th Amendment due withholding evidence against the pilot how they are accused of being "cognitively deficient/defective." Even more suspect the test itself is controlled by a private company, Cognitive Research Corporation
owned by the test creator itself Gary Kay PhD
As Pointed out in in another publication by Dr. Blue in April 2023 https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2023/june/pilot/flight-md-cog-screen-testing and on Episode 82 of "The Pilot's Pandemic" Podcast from June 2023 https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thepilotspandemic/episodes/82-Dr--Brent-Blue-Senior-AOPA-AME-Advisor--HIMS-AME--Pilot-e26a1no
* 18 minutes into the Podcast Dr. Blue states point blank even though the FAA commissioned and paid for the creation of Cogscreen in 1987, Gary Kay the test creator owns the copyright and patent for the test and gets a kickback of $100 every time the test is administered.
* 18 min 38 sec Dr. Blue says the Cogscreen has NEVER been shown to prevent an accident.
* 18 min 48 sec Says 80% of the 20 studies done on the Cogscreen with the last one being done in 2000 either had Gary Kay as the lead author or one of the authors which is a SIGNIFICANT CONFLICT OF INTEREST.
* 19 min 18 sec Dr. Blue questions why the FAA uses the Cogscreen the way they do. and says it's an subjective test but the FAA uses as an yes/no test meaning that a pilot could pass an assessment with flying colors but if they do bad on the Cogscreen they won't get their medical back. Dr. Blue finds this truly offensive and makes no sense what so ever
As documented below Dr. Blue states the Cogscreen is "ridiculous" and proves nothing, especially if a pilot passed sim training (and by extension passing a checkride to earn a flight rating) They are mentally capable to fly. Can't be emphasized enough that Dr. Blue stated the test is graded subjectively yet is used as a hard yes/no regarding if a pilot receives his medical or not regardless if the pilot aces every other aspect of a cognitive assessment. Not only does this prove that day two of Fabian's testing was nothing more than a cash grab, but with the recent policy change certain if you pass the Cogscreen, you don't have to take it again, then it incentivizes the test administrator to keep failing the pilot with their subjective grading to hold them hostage.
Also keep in mind that not every pilot has to take this which is a violation of the 14th Amendment equal protection clause. The test itself violates the 6th where it's a black box and there is no transparency to it being the accuser along with the FAA's 5th Amendment violation of forcing the disclosure of past diagnoses whether they were valid or not, such as the over diagnosis of ADHD which Dr, Blue also states in the podcast at the 39 minute mark. And no HIPAA does not protect pilots from being subject to perjury indictments for withholding said info. This is why pilots are afraid to seek healthcare because no diagnosis means no act of perjury is committed
Dr. Blue is also has no idea why the FAA continues to use the Cogscreen in spite of all the evidence put forward. He probably was unaware of Dr. David O'Brien's ties to Gary Kay. Why else would have the Cogscreen website have hosted O'Brien's white paper https://next.thehhp.net/index.php/s/keNELgosoANpP79 mirrored https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qCxR_cOGWhagrg-fN6HUj4hyu1r8Lf5U/view?usp=sharing Remember After I sent this to Congressman Sessions's office, the PDF was deleted from the website, but not before I persevered the google cache to prove it was there https://next.thehhp.net/index.php/s/EL6GBQ48gameFNH mirrored https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JkEY1Dzs34pqZZ5pm71OYUUgb1Yijo42/view?usp=sharing
Full breakdown of the episode here. https://sites.google.com/site/no2cog/supporting-evidence/senior-hims-ame-dr-brent-blue-says-cogscreen-never-stopped-an-accident
not only does the FAA HIMS program forces pilots into the unconstitutional action of not only being held hostage to the HIMS program, but are forced keep using the same HIMS AMEs and Specialists every single time, no second opinion for as long as they desire to fly. 31 min 45 sec Not only is this a failure of The FAA oversight to prevent malpractice, it has the exact opposite effect and in fact this absolutely incentivizes these quacks to keep "finding problems with pilots" which in turn is a financial gravy train for these quacks. This is especially true if the quacks are either partners in or receive kickbacks from rehab centers. 33 min 25 sec 95% of Joe's clients are pilots that have been duped into the HIMS program, HIMS negatively affects the pilot. Also as pointed out by Dr. Blue there is no good reason why those pilots tagged with ADHD as children by the public schools who have no criminal record of alcohol or substance dependence should have to go see a HIMS specialist and then be held hostage by said HIMS specialist.
It's not just Joe LoRusso stating that pilots are held hostage by HIMS Practitioners, Gary Crump the director of the AOPA Pilot Information Center Medical Certification Section stated that Pilots often have no choice in choosing their HIMS AME but "are joined at the hip" and it would take an act of Congress to allow a pilot to change HIMS AMEs and specialists. 35 min 29 sec https://youtu.be/iNWhpl4DtmA?t=2128 Federal Air Surgeon Dr. Susan Northrup MD then stated that the process is being made "easier" to change HIMS AMEs but "requires negotiations" which is an intentionally vague answer. With all the issues with AAM-300 and this only scratches the surface, the public would ask, why don't the pilots publicly complain and call this out?
Pilot's are afraid to say anything because The FAA Aeromedical Division is run like a dictatorship by Federal Air Surgeon Dr. Susan Northrup MD, Manager Dr. David O'Brien MD, and Dr, Nathan Teague MD even though this violates the law. https://aam300.com/faq/ Most pilots are afraid to speak up for fear of never getting their medical back or getting stuck with a "Special Issuance Medical," which is granted conditionally under the requirement of continued testing demanded by AAM-300 with no roadmap, has a reduced time of validity as compared to Standard Issue Medicals and often expire before being granted the ability to renew thus grounding the pilot, and on top of which can be revoked at any time by AAM-300 without warning or recourse holding the pilot hostage. As pointed out by LoRusso at 26 min. Due to this cloak of silence. these egregious acts by this government agency have largely flown under the radar of Congressional Oversight. LoRusso says as much at 20min 50 seconds Especially because of the blatant violation of the 14th Amendment depriving pilots of due process. Pilots being afraid of saying anything for fear of never getting their medicals back is a defacto loss of their 1st Amendment rights.
This level of malpractice, corruption and outright disregard of following the law goes all the way up to the FAA Administrators. Previous FAA Administrator Steve Dickson was integral in causing an Delta Airlines pilots whistleblower Karlene Petitt to lose her medical for two years by intentionally weaponizing a psychiatric evaluation. https://sites.google.com/site/no2cog/supporting-evidence/psychology-confirmation-bias-and-social-equity-quotas an administrative law judge later determined. The psychiatrist who gave the initial diagnosis, Dr. David Altman which Delta paid for, sum of $74,000 https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2022/10/26/delta-weaponized-mental-health-rules-against-a-pilot-she-fought-back/
years later was forced by Illinois regulators to stop practicing medicine partly due to improprieties involving commercial-pilot screening for the carrier." https://www.ssmplaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Att-B-2017-04232-David-B-Altman-036047157_Redacted.pdf and https://idfpr.illinois.gov/Forms/DISCPLN/2020_08enf.pdf
Delta was later order to by the courts to pay Petitt $500,000 for weaponizing a false mental disorder diagnosis with the intent of permanently grounding her for life. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/10/29/2131793/-Delta-paid-a-doctor-to-declare-a-pilot-mentally-ill-after-she-spoke-up-She-just-won-big-in-court and https://www.reddit.com/r/flying/comments/yjbs3g/delta_paid_a_doctor_to_declare_a_pilot_mentally/
What should also be pointed out about these HIMS mental health quacks is that they also are holding pilots hostage where they are either sexually assaulted the pilots or are expecting sexual favors from the pilots by holding a result desirable to the pilot over the pilots' head in exchange for such favor as pointed out by Delta Airlines whistleblower Karlene Petiitt on her blog blog https://karlenepetitt.blogspot.com/2023/05/medical-fraud-and-abuse.html?m=1
Mental Health quacks holding patients hostage for money is not isolated to the FAA either.
https://nypost.com/2023/07/24/psychiatrist-accused-of-keeping-patients-against-their-will/
Article is from New York Post. Not only is this not an isolated incident, this is actually common practice not only among mental health quacks in general but also by the mental health quacks contracted by the FAA for the FAA HIMS program where pilots are held hostage by the quacks that run and profit off of the HIMS program. This is especially apparent since the airlines themselves are reimbursed by the FAA which in turn is funded by the taxpayers for each pilot that's sent into HIMS and the program is so egregious it is spilled over into non airline pilots where those non airline pilots are forced to pay out of pocket tens of thousands of dollars potentially.
Many of these issues Dr. Brent Wyrick Deputy Air Surgeon for the FAA seemed to acknowledge are a real problem within the FAA Aeromedical Division and need to be fixed
https://www.reddit.com/r/flying/comments/15ak36k/notes_from_the_faa_mental_health_talk_at_oshkosh/
* First he indirectly admitted that the FAA did in fact move the goalposts for reporting of ever being diagnosed with ADHD in your lifetime between the old paper form of 8500-8 and MedXpress. The old 8500-8 form stated mental disorders as "bipolar, schizophrenia ect" and the FAA websites did not list ADHD as a disqualifying condition. It's only when after the FAA switched to the MedXpress website with drop down disorder listings that the website forces pilots to answer did this become a problem and existing pilots were forced into the biased and rigged cognitive profiling process which includes the rigged Cogscreen.
* Dr. Wyrick acknowledged this was a widespread problem for pilots tagged with ADHD as children because he stated that if a pilot passed an instrument checkride, they have the concentration and can maintain an attention span to pilot an aircraft. You can't take a checkride without a medical and you can't take an instrument checkride without passing at least the private pilot checkride. Meaning the FAA did move the goalposts and not that the pilots failed to report ADHD on the medical because it was not asked. Instead many in AAM-300 such as Dr. David O'Brien are trying revise history by stating that the pilots lied and committed perjury, the very people that evidence is pointing towards receiving kickbacks everytime a pilot is forced to take the Cogscreen. One should ask if the pilots lied on the paper form 8500-8, wouldn't they continue to lie on MedXpress? Instead the reality is the ADHD question was not asked on form 8500-8 and pilots not thinking twice answered the question truthfully on MedXpress not realizing that telling the truth would put their medicals in jeopardy.
*Dr. Wyrick further emphasized that checkride passes, specifically for the instrument rating should be more heavily weighted to assessing if a pilot can hold an attention span and that the cognitive profiling process is a "black box" which violates the 6th Amendment. I have an instrument rating
*Dr Wyrick also admitted that ADHD was over-diagnosed when pilots were children and family doctors were giving out Ritalin prescriptions like candy to appease the public schools and the current system is giving pilots tagged with the ADHD as children the Jim crow treatment was drying up their pilot supply chain.
*Without directly admitting to it, Dr. Wyrick stated that the entire nerocog process including the Cogscreen was biased and rigged and that an ADHD test was being developed that AMEs can administer as a "one and done" affair and not using the 14th Amendment, 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendment violating mental health quacks.
So with these admissions, The FAA should be forced to expunge any records from a pilot forced to go see an FAA contracted mental health quack that is biased against the pilot where they subjectively grade the Cogscreen along with the rest of their assessment as a fail to hold the pilot hostage for money and in many cases sexual favors to garner a medical. These pilots that have passed at least an instrument checkride and especially those that have attained higher ratings such as myself where I have also earned both single engine and multi engine commercial ratings should be allowed to be able to renew their standard issue medicals no question asked going forward. This should be especially the case for those pilots such as myself that have been trapped in FAA Medical Purgatory for years when Dr. Wyrick stated he wants to get the process down to under 60 days. My purgatory has gone on now for over five years.
Dr. Wyrick should be compelled to testify before the Subcommittee for Government Operations and Federal Workforce as to why it has taken this long for FAA officials to admit AAM-300 is very broken and seemingly a very major reason why reforms have yet to take place is because various managers and contractors within and affiliated with AAM-300 have profited off of holding pilots hostage by subjectively grading their assessments as fails not based on any science or hard evidence. Dr. Wyrick even seemed to admit that Congress should have reigned this corruption in years ago.
This subsection of the Website we discuss how FAA Medical also seems to be targeting pilots due to ESG/DEI as well as profile John Mathew Fabian in particular who is not just a isolate bad apple, but one of a whole orchard of them clipping pilots wings.