Tipsheet

FAA Makes Major Change to Health Requirements for Pilots, Raising Alarm

Leah Barkoukis
Leah Barkoukis  |  January 18, 2023 8:30 AM

Late last year, after the vaccine rollout, the Federal Aviation Administration quietly changed the EKG parameters for pilots in a move that’s raising concern about flight safety.

According to a report on Substack by Vaccine Safety Research Foundation founder Steve Kirsch, the October 2022 version of the FAA Guide for Aviation Medical Examiners widened the range acceptable for pilots to fly.

“The PR (a measure of heart function) used to be in the range of .12 to .2,” he writes. “It is now: .12 to .3 and potentially even higher. This is a very wide range; it accommodates people who have cardiac injury.”

Why did the FAA make the change? Fox News's Tucker Carlson reached out to the FAA for an answer. He was told they "follow standard processes based on data and science," but that data was not provided. 

Lt. Col. Theresa Long, an Army flight surgeon, said the reason for the change is “very obscure,” noting that the new range “does not improve safety.”

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She told Carlson aviation is "data driven" and "everything centers on risk mitigation, so making that broader actually puts the public at greater risk of the pilot having a cardiac event that didn't get caught because they extended that range." 

Long was confident there is no possibility that the change would be made in the name of safety. 

In 2021, Long spoke during a panel discussion hosted by Sen. Ron Johnson on vaccine mandates and vaccine injuries, explaining what she had seen happen to some pilots who received the vaccine, and how she was treated for speaking up about it. 

“I saw five patients in clinic, two of which presented with chest pain days to weeks after vaccination and were subsequently diagnosed with pericarditis and were worked up to rule out myocarditis," she said.

“The third pilot had been vaccinated and felt like he was drunk, chronically fatigued within 24 hours after vaccination,” she continued. “After I reported to my command my concerns that in one morning I had to ground three out of three pilots due to vaccine injuries, the next day my patients were canceled, my charts were pulled for review, and I was told I would not be seeing acute patients anymore -- just healthy pilots there for their flight physical.”