Why discriminate against diabetes. Of the things listed, this is probably the most common one & a lifestyle disease. This can have a onset in mid-40s to 50s for some genetically predisposed people. Are they not allowed to fly then?
Yeah, in undergrad I worked with a guy who was very bad at managing his blood sugar levels. One weekend he was alone in the lab and up on a ladder adjusting a ceiling-mounted camera; he passed out, fell, ripped the $30k camera out of the ceiling, caught the PC it was connected to on fire, and woke up on the floor a while later with no recollection of any of it. Another time he was biking home in the winter and passed out, luckily to be discovered in the snow by another colleague who happened to be walking home.
This is the reason. Nuance is also common for some things on the list (e.g. HIV/ADHD but not all things, e.g. AIDS/Color blindness). But all these things are still lacking of a lot of nuance and things like diabetes has only recently been partially resolved due to large lobbying efforts of the ADA: https://diabetes.org/tools-support/know-your-rights/discrimi...
Difficult to see what the “nuance” would be for HIV. If someone knows they have HIV, is receiving treatment, and passes other general health checks, then there’s really no risk. It smells of 80s prejudice.
Wait until you want to get a driver's license in Europe. You'd be surprised how much bs you'd have to go though to get one in some countries as a diabetic.
Also funny sidenote where I live: if you got type 1 diabetes before getting your license you are legally bound to report it, if you got if after getting your license you have to make your own assesment if you should report it (my not legal advice: never do that, it shortened the license from 10 to 5 or 3 years and puts you though whatever the approving person wants to put you though which can be extensive)
Because diabetes events (both hypo and hyperglycemia) due to human error can and regularly do lead to accidents. It's bad enough in cars, but a plane? Hell no.
I think they focus on type-1 not the type-2 that is likely common even in professionals. Type-1 can cause many immediate issues. And thus likely they don't want pilots with it.
