By Greg Piper
FAA says “new scientific evidence” justified widening acceptable range for heart rhythms. Medical experts disagree whether change is “shocking” or “benign and practical” given pilot shortage. CDC called out for changing methodology to “get the result you want.”
Federal agencies are withholding the data behind recent decisions that relate or may relate to COVID-19 vaccines and severe adverse events, fueling speculation that they are putting both vaccinated and unvaccinated lives at risk.
The Federal Aviation Administration told Just the News it widened the acceptable range of heart rhythms for commercial pilots, who were initially subject to industry-wide vaccine mandates, in light of “[n]ew scientific evidence” that it has yet to specify.
The Oct. 26 update to the heart arrhythmias section of the FAA Guide for Aviation Medical Examiners made two key changes.
The agency raised the maximum so-called PR interval for first-degree atrioventricular block to 300 milliseconds, with no regard to age, on the list of “normal variants” that don’t require deferment in the absence of “symptoms or AME concerns.”
For intervals longer than 300 ms, the FAA will make the call based on evaluations by examiners. The previous maximum PR interval for AV block was 210 milliseconds, but only in pilots under age 51.
FAA spokesperson Ian Gregor provided a modified version of the statement the agency released last spring after American Airlines pilot Robert Snow blamed his in-flight cardiac arrest on coerced vaccination.
Federal Air Surgeon Susan Northrup has deemed all U.S.-authorized COVID vaccines safe for pilots, the FAA said, claiming it had “seen no evidence” of vaccine-related complications that caused “aircraft accidents or pilot incapacitations.”
The agency followed “standard processes based on data and science” to determine it could “safely raise the tolerance used to screen for a certain heart condition” and notified AMEs of the change. Gregor didn’t respond to queries for the specific evidence.
Such representations may not assuage those who have more flight options. U.S. Freedom Flyers cofounder Joshua Yoder, whose group collects and analyzes adverse event reports from pilots, tweeted that “wealthy businessmen” have contacted him “looking for unvaccinated pilots.”
Yoder started getting requests in fall 2021, “a mix of charter companies and private individuals who own personal jets,” he wrote in an email. “I’ve spoken to 30 plus individuals myself and have also heard from an aircraft broker recently who told me he’s receiving similar requests.”
Sheumas McGonnegal, a self-described veteran in London, claimed his charter company had received such requests. He didn’t answer Just the News requests for more details.
Vaccine-skeptic philanthropist Steve Kirsch, once courted by Democratic presidential hopefuls, called attention to the three-month-old FAA change Tuesday, claiming it showed the agency has conceded “the EKGs of pilots are no longer normal.” He interviewed cardiologist Thomas Levy, who pointed Just the News to his Jan. 5 essay.
The FAA change is “arguably a shocking one, as many pilots are in the age range when heart attacks occur without any early symptoms but with a normal ECG, the ECG being the only mandatory heart-related test,” Levy wrote. “A fatal heart attack from very advanced coronary artery disease could occur 10 minutes after the normal ECG was recorded.”
The FAA declined to provide the “data and science” when Tucker Carlson asked for it in response to Kirsch’s essay, the Fox News host said.
Military flight surgeon Theresa Long, who blew the whistle on a spike in possibly vaccine-related adverse events in a military medical database in 2021, told Carlson the expanded interval “does not improve safety” and called on Northrup to release the data.
She said the military requires annual EKGs of pilots regardless of age, in contrast to commercial pilots, who get EKGs at age 35 and then annually starting at 40, a problematic “five-year gap.”
