Class 3 Medical

[Austin Parker]

I am wondering if any one with a 3rd Class medical has ever had the FAA investigate there medical and if so why ? I am not really looking for everyone’s ethical opinion just facts was there medical ever looked at and why. If so what process was used. I am very aware of consequences and also very aware that many people forget to list stuff. I appreciate your honesty and understanding

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

As we have discussed here before at length, for 3rd class, it certainly appears there is no evidence it improves the safety of flight.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

That raises the question of whether the burden of proof should be on those who wish to allow freedoms, or on those who wish to restrict freedoms.

We have been through this before. The burden of proof is on he who asserts existence. In this case that is those who asserts there is a positive effect on flight safety. No good evidence for this has been adduced. Though we did see previously highly selective citation of snippets of studies taken out of context.

If people know of some good studies to demonstrate this, please post the citations.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

Are you saying that the only freedoms worth protecting are those which are officially recognized as rights?

We have also debated before what the appropriate standard of evidence is when the government proposes to issue a regulation or law, and thus the ultimate threat of the use of violence if one does not comply, to enforce what they think is a good idea.

A separate moral question from the evidence based scientific question. I would submit those proposing such rules and laws should have very good evidence their rule or law will have the intended effect overall, otherwise, they should leave people the heck alone.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

There, fixed that for ya.

This is trying to reverse the proper burden of proof. Just because there is no evidence to disprove a statement does not imply it is true. At best it means that the statement cannot be assigned a truth value.

In the present instance, IIRC, there actually is weak, not conclusive evidence, that 3rd class medicals do not improve the safety of flight.

Lacking good evidence of the effectiveness and this weak evidence of equal accident rates, a balanced conclusion is that there is likely no effect.

That is how one reaches objective knowledge and conclusions, by considering all the evidence appropriately. One does not do so by trying to prove a pre-conceived notion and selectively citing facts, studies, and the literature.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

@mryan75 I will add though that I applaud the effort to try and find data and studies pertaining to the question. I found some of them quite interesting.

One I am actually still undecided on how to interpret. I guess I should write these all up on a page for reference.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

There are millions of words written on the subject. Entire federal departments have existed to study these matters for 7, 8 decades and more. To sit here and say it's all just made up to annoy us is not even an argument worth responding to (a lesson I still have yet to learn, apparently).

No one is saying it is all made up to be annoying, so a bit of a straw man fallacy there.

My point is - where’s the data?

If there are millions of words written on the subject at hand - namely, whether the requirement for a 3rd class medical improves the safety of flight - that should be easy, right?

But the truth of the matter is, despite fairly extensive discussion here and a reasonable amount of searching by a number of us, none has been cited here.

We have found I think perhaps 4 or 5 studies, and the weak evidence they provide is that there is no improvement in the safety of flight due to the requirement for a 3rd class medical.

Please feel free to cite more, if they are around.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

There is 100 years of evidentiary medical testing and regulatory history to be studied. It's actually quite interesting.

Have you found a good description of how the requirement for the 3rd class medical was introduced? I have been looking for that.

You guys make it seem like the FAA all of the sudden established thousands of pages of aviation regulation from one day to the next based on nothing whatsoever, other than a desire to control people and ruin lives. It's frankly absurd.

Not at all what I intend to say. I think the FAA acts like a very typical government regulatory agency.

They likely have good intentions but in general regulatory agencies don’t achieve their good intentions very well due to a variety of perverse incentives. See Mises’ book “Bureaucracy” for a very extensive discussion generally.

The FAA has gradually expanded the regulations over the course of perhaps 8 decades, often in reaction to some accident or crisis, and they frankly seemed like a good idea at the time.

But the unintended side effects of these regulations often effectively negate those good intentions. That is why actual studies of the effects are needed. And why I keep asking for the data which would support the efficacy of the 3rd class medical.

It is good that we have BasicMed now as it will serve as a good test bed as well as helping. But also bear in mind that this was not really the FAA’s initiative. It was imposed on them by Congress.

We all know that FAA regulations are written in blood. The same applies here.

Perhaps, but that is actually not a particularly good way to manage public policy. It results in knee jerk reactions, which are often over-reactions and not well conceived.

That some people are going to get unfairly and unjustly swept up in the regs is both true and unfortunate, but no law or regulation is perfect, and the fair question is, does it do more harm than good, and is the burden it places on people reasonable or not.

Exactly! Well designed studies of appropriate cost-benefit trade offs is a much better way to look at public policy. Where is such a study that addresses the 3rd class medical requirement?

It's a worthwhile and valuable discussion, but not if we're going to view anecdote as evidence, ignore evidence we don't like, and cite evidence that doesn't exist.

I appreciate that this round of discussion has not devolved into name calling, accusations, and selective quotation of the literature out of context. Very nice. I hope we can continue to discuss the data and studies in that manner.

What is the actual evidence that the requirement for a 3rd class medical improves the safety of flight?

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

Sorry but this is backwards.

Thinking about this more, I suspect this may explain some of the apparent lack of communication and incredulity expressed in the past on this subject.

I can understand how it may appear initially shocking to people that the FAA would have a regulation on the books which causes a lot of inconvenience, expense and sometimes pain for people, without serious study of the cost-benefit tradeoffs. It strikes me also as fairly outrageous.

But I think the way to understanding is to objectively focus on the data and their analysis.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

Alas, here is that information:

https://www.faa.gov/data_research/research/med_humanfacs/oamtechreports/

And a good place to start, in my opinion, is here, with Civil Aeromedical Research: Responsibilities, Aims, and Accomplishments, from October 1962:

https://www.faa.gov/data_research/research/med_humanfacs/oamtechreports/1960s/media/AM62-20.pdf

The first is just a general index to a bunch of reports. The second, while interesting from a historical point of view, does not appear to contain any data or analyses which would suggest that the requirement for a 3rd class medical improves the safety of flight. But if I missed in in a quick read, please feel free to point to the proper page or section.

To have a meaningful discussion on this, it really is best to do as suggested, read the various reports, look at and critically analyze the data.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

Just also found this report which bears on the question:" Do NTSB Statistics Support Current FAA Third Class Medical Policy?"
[PDF] okstate.edu . Analyses data 1982-1996, so somewhat older.

From that report "The statistics do not allow rejection of the null hypothesis, and so do not show a statistically significant linkage between percentage of medical elapsed and likelihood of incident occurrence."

"Incidentally, descriptive statistics of the control population show an unexpected negative linkage between recentness of medical certification and likelihood of being involved in an incident (R2 = .821). This counterintuitive finding indicates that recent third class medical certification correlates to increased pilot risk, rather than increased levels of safety"

I have not looked at it in detail, but it is certainly a counter-intuitive finding. It also has some links to the literature which the article claims were involved in this discussion earlier in the 1990s. Seems worth a close read and check on the references.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

Here is a link to Webb's letter when what has now become BasicMed was being debated. http://www.asma.org/asma/media/asma...ical-Letter-to-FAA-Administrator-4-9-2014.pdf . Number of references there which are probably worth a read.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

"A bunch of reports".

Okay, I surrender. I thought my point was there there are decades and decades of research on aeromedical factors and safety, and have now provided such. Apparently that's not of interest. So I surrender. I flat-out give up.

Enjoy.

Certainly these are of interest generally and a good resource, and do in fact demonstrate that there are decades and decades of research, thanks.

But how does that bear on the question of whether the requirement for 3rd class medical certification improves the safety of flight? Why would one think the existence of a bunch of research on various aeromedical topics somehow proves that 3rd class medicals improve the safety of flight?

As an argument, this is what is known formally as a non sequitur. It just doesn't follow.

It would refute the argument that the FAA is just making up regs to inconvenience people, to some extent, but I don't think anyone here has been arguing that. So that would be a straw man fallacy.

Seriously, to understand the data and analyses, one does have to read and understand them. That takes some effort, especially when first starting.

Of course, if one doesn't have the time or inclination, that is fine and understandable, but it might be best then to not insist that others are incorrect, trying to avoid the truth, etc.