FAA Lifts Ban on Antidepressants for Pilots

The FAA will change a 70-year-old rule that bars pilots taking medication for depression from operating planes. The new policy, which takes effect Monday, allows pilots who have been successfully treated for a year with the patented or generic versions of Celexa, Lexapro, Prozac, or Zoloft to request a waiver permitting them to fly. The relatively new drugs have fewer potentially hazardous side effects than earlier antidepressants, experts say.

"Depression is a disease, and it's treatable just like any other disease," the FAA administrator tells CNN. "And there is a stigma out there that we want to remove. We want to make the skies safer, and we believe that this change in the policy will benefit that and achieve that.""