On April 1, 2024, the FAA released the Mental Health & Aviation Medical Clearances Aviation Rulemaking Committee or ARC Report.
https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/Mental_Health_ARC_Final_Report_RELEASED.pdf mirrored https://drive.google.com/file/d/17LMipoSr0A2BiEbj_MjgSLEqf4iYJovU/view?usp=drive_link and in it their are 32 mentions of the ADHD. in the document released. 28 in the report and 4 times in the FAA white paper added as Appendix E.
Page numbers are of the actual PDF, not printed in the document which is one number behind
Page 26 stated The ARC also notes the increasing number of young people that have been diagnosed with neurodevelopmental disorders47 like ADHD who are considering careers in aviation. Specifically, the diagnosis, and perhaps over-diagnosis, of ADHD and the subsequent medication for that diagnosis is an issue of concern. Under current FAA regulations, pilots/controllers are disqualified when being treated for ADHD or taking any ADHD medication. The ARC encourages the FAA to explore how safety can be maintained while allowing pilots/controllers managing an ADHD diagnosis with medication to maintain their certification/clearance
page 33 For example, there are currently no ADHD medications allowed by the FAA. Therefore, many applicants with ADHD discontinue taking medication for the condition in the hopes of being certified/cleared. What these individuals seemingly misunderstand is that ADHD in and of itself is a disqualifying condition, regardless of the use of medication. Therefore, discontinuing the medication does nothing to increase the applicant’s chances of being certified/cleared and may only serve to worsen their symptoms if the ADHD diagnosis is correct
The FAA fails to list this on their website as we pointed out here https://sites.google.com/site/no2cog/supporting-evidence/inconsistency-in-reporting-medical-issues-between-form-8500-8-medxpres but also just acknowledged again here that ADHD is over diagnosesed, often wrong, and as Senior AME Dr. Brent Blue MD stated before the NTSB Safety Summit, is a "disease du jour" has been overdiagnosed and often times without testing and then says its extremely difficult to unlabeled these pilots as far as the FAA is concerned https://sites.google.com/site/no2cog/supporting-evidence/ntsb-summit-dr-blue-says-cogscreen-has-no-connection-to-pilot-performance
Page 44 The FAA should evaluate the feasibility of permitting pilots/controllers with an ADHD diagnosis to use appropriate and acceptable medications while on duty.
INTENT: To establish whether circumstances and conditions exist under which pilots/controllers may operate while taking approved medications for the treatment of their properly diagnosed ADHD.
RATIONALE: Untreated ADHD raises indisputable safety concerns. Accordingly, under current FAA policy, the diagnosis of ADHD, as well as all FDA approved medication options used to treat ADHD, are disqualifying. However, adults with active ADHD are estimated to be as high as 4.4% of the population, 82 and the diagnosis among children is also increasing, which may have implications for future pilot/controller ranks. While misdiagnosis may partly be a factor in this phenomenon, there is no reason to doubt there are pilots/controllers operating in the NAS with unreported or untreated ADHD. Thus, a renewed look at FAA policies regarding treatment and clearance of controlled ADHD would help normalize safety-enhancing treatment and contribute to the perception of the aeromedical system as fair and just. As noted above, 83 many current and aspiring pilots/controllers are known to alter their ADHD treatment specifically to meet FAA certification standards due to the mistaken belief that it is the medication only, and not the condition itself, that is disqualifying. However, the ARC notes that certain ADHD medications are demonstrably well tolerated and known to improve some cognitive function and performance in correctly diagnosed ADHD patients.84
APPROACH: The ARC recommends that the FAA reexamine its ADHD certification/clearance policies to determine the potential aeromedical effects of ADHD. This reexamination should be consistent with contemporary treatment options and protocols and appropriately prescribed medications to mitigate symptoms of ADHD in various operational environments. This should include a study designed in conjunction with research experts to determine appropriate assessment methodologies and operational performance outcomes. Barriers Addressed: Fear, Process, Knowledge and Information Gap
FACT Data collected by the NTSB over a fifteen year period has shown the accident rate for pilots tagged with ADHD is 0.18%. 0.10% with of 5 accidents undeclared ADHD and 0.08% or 4 accidents with formal tagging. This is out of a sample size of 4894 accidents from 2000-2015. So a pilot tagged with ADHD is 99.82 percent likely to not be involved in an aviation relate accident. The fact the ARC report acknowledges this and states in the next paragraph that the FAA needs to re-address their certification/clearance policies acknowledges that ADHD is NOT a safety issue. because there a large percentage of pilots flying safety without incident because if they were went to get diagnosed or were diagnosed and disclosed it to the FAA, they would be grounded.
What isn't addressed is the subjectively graded cognitive tests including the Cogscreen that are used beyond their design scope and lack data to support their diagnoses as pointed out in the safety summit, https://sites.google.com/site/no2cog/supporting-evidence/faa-admits-cog-tests-lack-data-are-subjective-are-used-beyond-intent and the Cogscreen in particular was "validated by the Russians" https://sites.google.com/site/no2cog/supporting-evidence/faa-admits-that-cogscreen-creator-worked-with-the-russians-to-validate-test It seems the only part of the report that touches this subject is on page 41 of minimizing the requirements of neurocognitive testing, when the tests, all the tests, not just the Cogscreen. but all the tests such as the PASAT https://sites.google.com/site/no2cog/supporting-evidence/pasat-test-rigged-to-fail-tester should be eliminated entirely since they are snake-oil.
These subjective non-science backed tests need to be banned from use by the FAA as a tool to ground perfectly capable pilots.
Then there's the fact that many prominent doctors also view ADHD as a fake disease which is an even bigger insult to every pilot that has been grounded for years for no good reason. https://sites.google.com/site/no2cog/supporting-evidence/prominent-doctors-claim-adhd-is-not-a-real-disease