This is not just an FAA problem. Pilot medical certification decision making by the authorities in many countries is capricious, opaque, prolonged and usually b

This is not just an FAA problem. Pilot medical certification decision making by the authorities in many countries is capricious, opaque, prolonged and usually behind the science by a decade or more. A childhood diagnosis of ADHD or asthma might be a bar to obtaining a pilot medical even though the condition was resolved over a decade ago. That said, one pilot with mental issues deliberately crashed an airliner in Southern France several years ago. The captain took a washroom break and was blocked from the cockpit by the hijacker proof door.