During a commemorative service in 2022, the veteran captain of the Air Force Monte Watts came up against another former minuteman III nuclear missile operator, who told her that she had non -Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Watts knew other missiles with similar cancers. But the connection really hit the house later that same day in January, when the results of a blood test revealed that Watts himself had chronic lymphocytic leukemia, a type of non-Hodgkinian lymphoma.
“I don’t know if it was ironic or fortuitous or what is the right word, but that was,” said Watts.
Within the community of American soldiers who dominated silos of nuclear missiles dispersed through northern rocks and large plains, suspicion had long been preparing that their workplaces were not sure. Only a few months after the diagnosis of Watts in 2022, Lieutenant-Colonel Danny Sebeck, an old Air Force missile which had been transferred to the US Space Force, wrote a thesis on a potential cancer cluster among the people who served in the launch control centers of Minuteman III on the basis of the Malmstrom Air Force in Montana.
Sebeck identified 36 former workers who served mainly from 1993 to 2011 and had received a cancer diagnosis, including himself. Among these, 11 had non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma; Three were dead. The Air Force responded quickly to Sebeck’s conclusions, launching a massive investigation into cancer cases and the three -base environment of intercontinental ballistic missiles and a launch installation in California. The goal is to complete the search by the end of 2025.
The service has published parties of studies as they end, holding online town halls and briefings to highlight its results. But while the old missiles say that they are encouraged by the rapid response, they remain concerned that research, which crosses decades and includes thousands of ICBM staff and administrative workers, can tackle an excessive population or use statistical analyzes that do not show a link between their diseases and their military service.
They need this equality to accelerate the benefits of the Ministry of Veterans Affairs.
Historically, the Ministry of Defense has been slow to recognize potential environmental diseases. Veterans were rendered by an exhibition to Agent Orange in Vietnam, navies who drank contaminated water at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and soldiers who have lived and worked near Burn Pits in Iraq and Afghanistan have fought for years so that their diseases are recognized as linked to the military service.
In the case of missiles, the Air Force had already studied potential contamination and cancer in Malmstrom in 2001 and 2005. This research concluded that the launch control centers were “safe and healthy work environments”. But with the presentation of Sebeck and the decision to continue a more in -depth investigation, Air Force Global Strike Command – The unit responsible for the management of nuclear missile silos and aircraft -based nuclear weapons – said previous studies may not have included a sufficiently large sampling of medical records to be complete.
SEBECK, who is co -director of The Torchlight Initiative, a defense group for defenders who support the ICBM staff and their families, told Congress Democrats on April 8 that the Ministry of Defense had not accurately followed the exhibitions to the community, which makes veterans difficult to prove a link and to obtain health care and compensation for the inconvenience.
“I had to go to a person will and pull certain papers,” said Sebeck, referring to the government system to record the environmental risks of members of the services. “It is said that I visited Poland once. He does not mention that I fired 148 alerts in a launch control center with polychloric biphenyls and with this contaminated air and water. ”
PCB – and the missiles exposed to them
PCBs are synthetic chemicals formerly used in industry, including electrical missile control components such as display screens, keyboards and circuit breakers. They have been prohibited for manufacturing since 1979, deemed toxic and a probable carcinogen by the Environmental Protection Agency.
The study on cancer of the Air Force missiles community compares 14 types of current cancers in the general American population and the community of missiles and also studies the environments of the Air Force of Malmstrom in Montana, the base of the Air Force Warren in Wyoming, the basis of the Minot Air Force in North Dakota and the basis of Vandenberg Cancer in California were able to contribute to the risk of developing cancer.
The bases of Malmstrom, Warren and Minot together 400 Missiles Minuteman III, the earthly leg of the American nuclear triad, which also includes nuclear weapons launched by submarines and planes. The missiles are housed in silos distributed in certain parts of Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado and Nebraska, with the clock by missiles operating from underground launch centers and similar to bunker.
So far, the Air Force survey has not found any “statistically high” death against cancer in the missile community compared to the general population, and it has found that mortality rates of four types of current cancers – non -Hodgkinian lymphoma, lung, colon and rectum and prostate cancer – were significantly lower in the general population.
Non Hodgkin’s lymphoma represented approximately 5.8% of all cancer deaths in people who worked in launch control centers from January 1979 to December 2020.
The first results, derived from medical records in the Department of Defense, found high rates of breast and prostate cancer in the missile community, but a subsequent analysis incorporating additional data did not support these results. Studies have also not found a increased rate of non -Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Air Force officials noted, however, during an online town hall on June 4, however, that these assessments are based on about half of the data that the service plans to review for its latest epidemiological reports and warned against the drawing conclusions taking into account the limits.
The final incidence report will include federal and state data, including information from the civil cancer registers, and will immerse yourself in sub-groups and exhibitions, which can “provide more in-depth information on the complex relationship” between the service in the missile community and the risk of cancer, wrote the Air Force Colonel Richard Speakman in a memo of September 2024 epidemiology.
General Thomas Bussiere, commander of the Air Force Global Strike Command, said during the June town hall that only the final results will determine whether cancer of the missile community are higher than the general population.
Some legislators share the concern of missiles concerning the study of the Air Force. After the publication of a data review of the Light Initiative of Torchons of the University of North Carolina which showed higher rates of non -Hodgkinian lymphoma – at younger ages – among Malmstrom’s missiles, representative Don Bacon (R -NEB.) Introduced an amendment to a defense policy bill for the national academies of science, engineering and medicine academies and medicine and medicine To examine health and safety conditions in facilities.
“Make sure we have external experts working with the Air Force studying cancer rates with our ICBM missions,” said Bacon on July 30 on the social platform X. “We want to ensure credibility and that whatever the results, we have made a total reasonable diligence.”
With regard to additional studies on working environments in the facilities and a possible relationship between exhibitions and the risk of cancer, Speakman, which commands force force School of Aerospace Medicine, said that Malmstrom had two types of PCB that the other two missile wing bases did not.
He added that benzene, found in cigarette smoke, vehicle exhaust and petrol smoke, was the largest contributor to the risk of cancer in base journals.
The assessment has concluded that health risks for missiles are “low, but it is not zero,” said Speakman. He said it would be appropriate to monitor the health of launch control workers.
Following steps
Watts, whose history was underlined by the Torchlight initiative, asked the Inspector General of the Ministry of Defense to investigate – the supervisory agency returned its request to the Global Strike Command – and closely looks at the Air Force Research. He said that most of the cancer cases reported in light of the Torchs occurred in the 2000s, when ICBM staff still used technology containing PCBs, burned classified materials such as treated paper and plastic coding devices inside, and possibly exposed to contaminated water.
“I open the door and there are guys standing in pressure costumes with sampling equipment,” recalls Watts. “They said,” We are here to check the contaminated water. I look at my crew commander, and we stick to cotton uniforms.
Launch control operators no longer burn code bands inside and Air Force has made improvements to air circulation in the centers. SEBECK wants the Congress to plan to include missiles and other people with exposure to basic contamination in the PACT law, historical legislation which obliges health care and the advantages for veterans overshadowed by burn and other pollutants.
“It is documented that there is a large cancer group in Montana, probably also in Wyoming. People act surprised, but all they have to do is to go to the Denver oncology office. I can find my missile friends. We are sitting in the same chairs to do chemotherapy,” said Sebeck.
The Air Force Global Stike Command spokesman, Major Lauren Linscott, said in response to Sebeck’s remarks that the unit included the impact of cancer on its staff and has committed to support them.
“Although the current results are preliminary and no conclusion can yet be drawn, we are dedicated to a rigorous process and evaluated by peers and data focused on better understanding the potential health risks because the security of our aviators is our absolute priority,” said Linscott.
The bills presented in the House and the Senate would address the situation. In addition to Bacon’s amendment, the Senate version of an annual defense policy bill would require “deep cleaning” of launch control centers every five years until the sites are disadvantaged as a new ICBM, the sentry, replaces the minuteman IIIS.
The Air Force aims to publish its latest epidemiological report by the end of the year.
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