Dear editor,
Airline pilot Charles P. Lenard, Jr. sent a letter to The Korea Times on April 3 to complain about my refusal to submit to HIV and drug testing under the E-2 foreign language teacher visa requirements.
Lenard said I should quit whining about the right to non-discriminatory treatment and the right to privacy, which he says are ``hypothetical rights."
He said I should take a lesson from the airline industry where pilots like him are subject to ``alcohol and drug testing." He made a good point. After all, we don't want our pilots up there lit up on booze and drugs ― that wouldn't be safe.
But here's a ``hypothetical" for him: what if his co-pilot wasn't required to do any of the tests because he was a Korean citizen or married to a Korean or of Korean descent? Would that be ok?
Because that's how it is with English teachers in Korea. A solid tie to the ``Korean bloodline" is all the government requires to guarantee that teachers are safe ― no drug tests required. How would that policy be up there in the cockpit?
Lenard's airplane pilot comparison is especially apt, poignant even, when it comes to the issue of testing for HIV/AIDS. Lenard got his pilot's license from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
I know because I checked it out on the FAA pilot search Web site. When he isn't busy pushing tin, Lenard explains he is ``subject to an annual physical exam." But if, god forbid, Lenard were to become infected with HIV/AIDS, would he banned from flying airplanes? Ejected from the pilot's seat, like a foreign English teacher would be deported from Korea? No, because the FAA, unlike the ROK, has laws that make sense.
The enlightened policy of the FAA Aeromedical Certification Division and the Federal Air Surgeon (see FAR Part 67.401) allows HIV positive pilots to fly with a standard medical certificate.
The FAA takes a cooperative approach with pilots, making sure they're taking the medication they need, remain healthy, and are able to do their job.
In other words, precisely the same approach that is being advocated as an alternative to the Korea Immigration Service's deportation policy.
The FAA doesn't irrationally try to protect airline passengers from the risk of HIV infection from pilots, as the ROK does Korean students from foreign teachers.
FAA policymakers realize that a passenger has as much of a chance of catching HIV from a pilot flying a plane as a student does from a teacher teaching a class: absolutely none. It's about time for ROK policymakers to have as much sense.
Andrea Vandom
E-2 visa English teacher