[Peetwo]

The Empire Strikes Back - AGAIN!

Courtesy John O'Brien, via the UP:

johnobr

Empire Strikes Back! on Colour Defective Pilots... Again.

It's been discussed in some other threads recently that CASA have changed the way they deal with CVD pilots. Given the importance of this issue to so many current and aspiring pilots, I have started this new thread to highlight the topic and offer perspective on behalf of the Colour Vision Defective Pilots Association (CVDPA).

10 years on from the Empire Strikes Back! on Colour Defective Pilots saga and the dark days of the AvMed Navathe era, it disappoints me to see that we're back here again. At the time, that PPRuNe thread ran for 36 pages and was highly successful in raising awareness of the plight of CVD pilots and our unjust treatment by AvMed zealots at the time.

After my own AAT win in 2014 (and two previous AAT wins in the late 1980s) it seemed like we were finally making progress, albeit slowly. New Zealand led the way with the introduction of the Operational Colour Vision Assessment (OCVA) and there was a brief period of enlightenment in Australia during 2020-2021 when former CASA CEO Shane Carmody and former PMO Dr Simon May followed NZ's lead and implemented the OCVA here too. Myself and many others were finally able to progress our careers to the fullest extent possible and get on with our lives again.

When CVDPA learnt in early 2022 that CASA had suspended the OCVA due to apparent concerns around lack of standardisation, we contacted the new PMO Dr Kate Manderson. She responded via email on 18/01/22 and advised:

This is something that came up in December last year, and we are still working through what the issues are and how they impact on people who have submitted their assessments recently, and what we need to do to be able to make sure the OCVA is acceptable and its results can’t be questioned in the future. Please be assured, there is no change to CASA policy, the OCVA is here to stay. These issues are, I hope, going to push us along so that the OCVA is as strong as it can possibly be for the longer term, and perhaps even for other jurisdictions.

This all sounded quite positive and despite early indications from the PMO that she wanted CVDPA to be involved in the working group tasked with reviewing the OCVA, we were quickly excluded from the process when the Deputy PMO Dr Tony Hochberg took over as the project manager and filled it with medical 'experts'. As of today, we still have no knowledge of the persons comprised in this panel (this information was redacted in recent documents obtained under FOI). However, I'd be willing to bet that at least some involved stand to make money out of the continued administration of clinical CVD tests, including the CAD.

Despite this, we continued to work proactively with CASA in an attempt to achieve a timely and satisfactory resolution. However, almost 2 years after the OCVA was suspended, it has become increasingly clear in recent months that AvMed wish to return us to the dark ages again and have proposed including restrictions on pilots' medicals, even if they pass the new test - to be renamed the ACVA. They're also refusing to recognise the pass results of some candidates who passed the original OCVA in the months leading up to it's suspension.

During the recent Senate Estimates hearing, CASA provided advice to Senator David Fawcett that this was incorrect:

Ms Spence : I think what we're saying is that we think our website's wrong. We will go back to review it, because that doesn't sound like our policy. As Dr Manderson said, we're working—and we're working internationally—looking at how we manage this issue. But the whole point, in the simplest terms, was that if you pass the test then you've got a permission to fly. Those sorts of conditions you've just described should not be applying. If you can bear with us, we'll review the website, because what you've read out just doesn't sound right.

The responses provided during Estimates are contrary to the advice that CVDPA has been given by CASA in their communications with us and also contradict information contained in documents recently obtained under FOI, which make it abundantly clear that the AvMed seek to continue to impose restrictions on CVD pilots. CVDPA have raised our concerns directly with CEO Pip Spence and yet 7 weeks on, our emails have gone unanswered.

We can only hope that she is using this time to get the zealots back in check. Stay tuned for more!

John O'Brien
CVDPA

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In case anyone's in any doubt about CASA's true intentions to wind back the clock again, the below Aviation Safety Committee Paper from 18/01/23 obtained under FOI is revealing.

During Estimates questioning, the Exec Manager Stakeholder Engagement advised:

Mr Marcelja: Could I jump in? The website and some of that information sits in my area. I think what you're describing, if that is correct, is not our policy. Our policy is that there are various conditions that we can put on medical certificates, depending on how you go in the test, but if you pass the test and can demonstrate that you're operationally safe there is no condition of a copilot. What Dr Manderson is saying, though, is that, because you have not met a medical standard that's internationally accepted but have proven you are safe, we will grant you a medical certificate. We can't say that you've met a standard but we can say you're safe to fly, and those conditions will be applied depending on the way you've gone. If that's on our website, I'll take that up, because that's not the policy.

Interestingly, the CASA website was updated after Estimates to remove mention of the proposed restrictions, but perhaps Mr Marcelja forgot that he approved this paper (prepared by Dr Hochberg)?

And from Arthur Pape:

Thanks jonobr!

As I've stated over and over, I have been challenging this perfidious "standard" for over 40 years, and I want to make some further observations that I have made about the matter.

• The church of the TRUE BELIEVERS that colour recognition and naming are essential and indispensable in acquiring awareness of operationally safety-relevant information and has a worldwide membership. I know all the senior clergy, and they are: Doug Ivan (Ret Colonel USAF), Sally Evans (CAA UK PMO), Tony Evans (long-time PMO in ICAO), and Dougal Watson (now ex-PMO CAA NZ). Each of these has had roles in the AAT cases concerning the colour vision standard, opposing relaxation in any form.
  
• In NZ, Dr Watson trained his team well in matters of colour vision and then promptly encouraged their migrations at various times to become PMOs or deputy PMOs with CASA: Pooshan Navathe, Michael Drane, and Dr Tony Hochberg.
  
• They are encouraged and supported by senior members of the various faculties of optometry, who feed them just what they want to hear. I'll mention a few: Prof. Barry Cole (Victorian College of Optometry); Dr Alys Vingrys (also VCO and a disciple of Barry Cole); Prof John Barbur (City, University of London). Last but not least, there is Dr John Parkes, an occupational physician, who has one of the two CAD machines in Australia. The second CAD is in Sydney and operated by an ophthalmologist I have never met. Each individual, except the owner of the Sydney CAD, has also played roles in AAT colour vision proceedings, supporting the CASA position.
  
• Over the long years, I have collected and studied hundreds of works and documents derived from these people, including the many research projects commissioned by CASA and their overseas counterparts (NZ CAA, UK CAA and the FAA). Bringing them all into the spotlight would take more than a book. However, if and when they were relied upon as evidence in the AAT, I drew upon highly qualified research professionals to critically analyse the contents. These critics formed the backbone of witnesses for the appellants in the three AAT CVD hearings. I'll leave it there, but note that CASA did not fare well in the three proceedings.
  
• A common theme I have found used by proponents of strong CVD regulation is that the matter is "self-evident". That is, you just need to show where and how colour is used in the wider aviation environment (i.e. colour is used ubiquitously), and it is "self-evident" that an individual who cannot reliably recognise and name those colours is going to be "unsafe".
  
• CASA's medical staff like to parade "Evidence Pyramids" as evidence that their decisions are "evidence-based". Yet, in their professional conduct, they give scant regard to the truth or otherwise of what they present to the plebs. Ask, and I can provide many examples of this.
  
• Truth has been a victim throughout the colour vision discussion, which leads me to the question: where is the ethics in all of this? The medical profession is supposed to be bound by a set of fundamental ethics. Now, granted that Aviation Medicine is not fundamentally a branch of the profession entrusted with treating sick people, I'll avoid referencing the "Hippocratic Oath" (I'm tempted to misspell the word). But there are other ethics relating to avoiding bias in decision-making and detecting and declaring a conflict of interest, to mention just a couple. The history of the debate over the colour perception standard is replete with glaring instances of poorly hidden conflicts of interest. They are particularly poignant in the current atmosphere, where lies and conflicts of interest can be easily demonstrated about the CAD test. The CAD is an expensive tool to buy, and the inventor of the CAD, Prof John Barbur, also conducted the validation process (which is a misnomer). He is the director of a spin-off company that markets the CAD worldwide. This marketing initially claimed that the CAD was "aviation specific" and that it would be a reliable predictor of performance by a CVD pilot on the PAPI.
  
• Dr John Parkes' should declare a conflict of interest in current deliberations, as he makes his living mainly from his CAD testing. But no, Dr Parkes is the chief instigator of the move to discredit the OCVA and replace it with something far more beneficial to himself (the ACVA as a supplement to his CAD testing).
  
• Finally, I congratulate John O'Brien on the way he has stuck to his guns and fought hard for his phenomenal career while staying in the fight. I know hundreds of pilots whose careers were salvaged from CVD obscurity by the likes of John and who took the rewards and vanished. As you can see, we are once again faced with a dreadful enemy that is immune to sound evidence and probably will not willingly make the right decision: to give us back the OCVA and stop harassing good, honest people who want to be professional pilots.
  

I am, and I know John is, determined to achieve that outcome, even if it means going to the Federal Court.

Please consider contributing to the fight with financial support for the CVDPA.
There is a PayPal link on our website at WWW.cvdpa.com

Plus this from Clinton McKenzie:

I encourage every pilot, every aspiring pilot and anyone who cares about them to consider providing financial support for the CVDPA. Ultimately, the only thing that keeps the CVD zealots in check is exposure to the glare of external scrutiny of courts and tribunals.

You may not have CVD, but your turn will come when the zealots decide that your ‘condition’ justifies the sorts of egregious, intellectually dishonest nonsense through which pilots with CVD are put.

And an important disclaimer: Neither Dr Arthur Pape nor John O’Brien nor I make a red cent directly or indirectly from fighting the zealots. In contrast, there’s an entire industry making money out of CVD, and some of the people who make that money are invitees to CASA’s CVD echo chamber.

The truth will out, one way or the other, again, but we’re again up against ‘Brandolini’s Law’, commonly known as the ‘bullshit asymmetry’. That ‘Law’ says that the amount of energy and resources necessary to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude greater than the energy and resources it took to produce it.

Another analogy: The views of CVD zealots are like Paterson’s Curse or Salvation Jane, depending on where you live. They’re a noxious weed that propagates so easily and therefore take so much time and energy to get back under control.

To read and keep up to date with the full UP thread click 'HERE'.

MTF...P2