Top-Gun Navy Pilots Fly at the Extremes. Their Brains May Suffer. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/08/...unlocked_article_code=1.f04.ZO_6.4_zxIT5hNNOL
The reader comments are especially insightful.
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NEWS Navy Launches TBI Study For Fighter Pilots
- Thread starter ChuckMK23
- Start date
Top-Gun Navy Pilots Fly at the Extremes. Their Brains May Suffer. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/08/...unlocked_article_code=1.f04.ZO_6.4_zxIT5hNNOL
The reader comments are especially insightful.
Medical professionals and Neurologists: We think there might be a link here.
Navy Public Affairs: We don't have any evidence to support this.
No shit big Navy, when you intentionally sweep things under the rug and ignore the science it's easy to say you don't have any evidence.
Navy Public Affairs: We don't have any evidence to support this.
No shit big Navy, when you intentionally sweep things under the rug and ignore the science it's easy to say you don't have any evidence.
I really hate how the DoD and govt in general are incentivized to sweep things under the rug. As flawed as it is, I think the PACT Act is/was a major step in the correct direction.
That could mean many things. It might be "confidential" to protect patient information under HIPAA. I am participating in a similar program through the VA tracking long term hazardous material exposure and genetic markers and whatnot. It is kept very confidential, all of my data is anonymized, and even my VA doctor doesn't have access to the results. This is done to protect patient privacy and confidentiality.
Totally acknowledge the HIPAA considerations, and I would never expect the Navy to release specifics about individual patients. I read the confidential piece as the Navy not wanting to acknowledge/publicize the existence of the study.
However, if this study does show a significant issue, then the overall conclusions need to be given to Navy Medicine and the VA so they can create some kind of mitigation/treatment plan.
My concern would be that the study is completed and any conclusions aren’t used to effect change.
Fixed it for you.
@ChuckMK23 this is important stuff, thank you. Isn’t it funny how all the aircraft we’ve flown on this site have time + intensity limits on them and their dynamic components but no so much for the operators and their gray matter? After lots of conversations with my Helo and Tacair siblings I’ve come to think that humans weren’t meant to do some of this stuff for as long and as hard as some of us have.
While I welcome any effort to study the effects of military flying on our aircrews (I've basically been straddling a high output microwave transmitter for the last 25 years), I fear that this will just turn into a version of "the radar on my airplane caused my cancer and every other ailment I can come up with" scare. The problem with studies like these (typically) is that there won't be anything conclusive or a smoking gun, so they'll couch their conclusions with phrases like "may cause" or "may contribute to," which just opens the doors to all the aforementioned angst and conspiracy theories.
@Brett327 maybe, but that’s exactly what the data collection is for (Prowler/Growler rads included). Naval Aviators/NFOs aren’t exactly the types to say as candidates, “Ooh, a 42% chance of cancer or TBI? No thanks.” This stuff requires an institutional-level risk assessment so that individuals don’t have to shoulder the burden of proving what they endured and what their bodies paid over their time in service.
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Fins Out
Well-Known Member
Good luck with change. Navy Medicine isn't exactly known to retain people that pay Mensa dues.
My point is that I'm not confident that anything like this will occur.
Instead, you'll get more stupefyingly cringe reporters writing things like "The Navy’s elite TOPGUN flying school puts fighter pilots through a crucible of intense, aerial dogfighting maneuvers under crushing G forces. But behind the high-speed Hollywood heroics that the school is famous for..." and this real gem... "Capt. Jake Rosales was a hotshot among hotshots. He aced TOPGUN, became one of its leading instructors and made the toughest dogfighting moves look easy." I mean... Jesus fucking Christ. This will be the level of public discourse on this topic.
Like I said, I'm all for a rigorous scientific analysis of this stuff, but all too often, the result is a bunch of unserious, wet behind the ears Navy Times reporters flailing their arms for clicks on a topic they barely understand.
It's a pretty small population of people. If the only two options are to turn a blind eye/do nothing because of the lack of some unattainable proof requirement or do literally anything helpful, I choose option B. What is that action? I don't know. But whatever it is I know it can't cost that much in the grand scheme of things and couldn't hurt in the neverending retention battle.
Nowhere have I said anything like this. My critique of what's in the NYT story is that we'll get a bunch of half-measures that wind up not serving those affected.
Considering that both the VA and the DoD as a whole are slowly implementing ways to better treat and deal with TBIs and the after effects of them, I am confident that they can extend some of that to aviators. I've had plenty of friends who have received some really top notch care from both DoD medicine and the VA after being blown up in Iraq and/or Afghanistan and suffering from severe TBIs. I don't see why we can't be optimistic about them helping aviators as well.