Air Force still not seeing higher cancer rates among Missiles as more data is collected

Current and former airmen who have worked with America’s nuclear missiles are not at a higher risk of being diagnosed with cancer, according to the latest findings from an ongoing study. Air Force study, but officials explained that there is still more data to examine before drawing any conclusions.

Air Force Global Strike Command officials said during a town hall Thursday that the latest findings were released as part of regular updates on the ongoing investigation into health and cancer issues among generations of service members . As the study continues, the service said it wants service members who have worked with nuclear ICBMs to trust its methodology.

The large-scale cancer study now includes data from Department of Veterans Affairs electronic records, as well as cancer registries from the VA and Department of Defense — some dating back to 1976. The most recent data results appeared to show that cancer rates among the nuclear missile community were not higher compared to the rest of the Forces airlines and the general population.

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Probes into cancer-related issues began last year after a Space Force officer and former missile maker created a presentation that revealed cases of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma among those who served in Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana. A large-scale investigation ensued. The first round of baseline data, looking only at DoD medical records, showed increased rates of breast and prostate cancer of those who served at intercontinental ballistic missile bases.

A This year’s Military.com survey found that two separate small rocket cancer studies in the early 2000s raised warnings about potential cancer clusters but were ignored. Air Force Global Strike Commander Gen. Thomas Bussiere told attendees at Thursday’s town hall meeting that he understands why current and former service members would be wary.

“I feel in the general community that there is some skepticism based on the results of the 2001 and 2005 report,” Bussiere said. “I share and have been very vocal about my dissatisfaction with the two reports, but this study, this effort and this energy, is significantly more focused and involved than the two times.”

There were several adjustments Air Force medical officials made to their study results released Thursday, namely they excluded anyone who had less than a year of service in ICBM-related career fields — which excluded more than 19,000 from the rocket community.

In addition, officials said the methodology for calculating incidence rates was slightly altered, determining “there is no statistically significant difference in the incidence of most types of cancer” between those in the missile community and Air Force Col. Anthony Waldroup, the department’s chief. aerospace medicine for the 711th Human Performance Wing, he said during the town hall.

Officials detailed that almost all of the data suggested “that the missile community had a relatively lower risk of developing these cancers than the general US population,” Waldroup added.

Air Force Global Strike Command officials guarded against that finding by saying they are still halfway through the data they need to obtain.

“Releasing preliminary information is just an attempt to be transparent, not definitive, on the discovery journey,” Bussiere said during the town hall. “About 50% of the data that’s there, we still have 50% of the data to go.”

The next steps will begin to look at cancer-specific mortality in the missile community, followed by a broad review of civilian tumor registries.

Examining state and local cancer registries is a crucial step because many veterans told Military.com that they did not seek care from the VA or through the Department of Defense because they did not initially believe their illnesses were related to their service, or that it had been decades since they were in uniform and were already receiving care through their primary care physician in the private sector. These results probably won’t be available until 2025.

But the long wait for breakthroughs has been tough for some.

Missiles and their families struggled to get VA benefits and connect their services to their illnesses. Relatives for Mark Holmes, a rocketeer who died in 2020 at the age of 37 from non-Hodgkin’s lymphomaspoke at the town hall about the headwinds they experienced.

“My son’s death has been determined to be non-service-related by the VA and not Air Force-related,” Dan Holmes, a former Missile and Mark’s father, said during the town hall. “Mark died in the service of his country, but in addition to fighting this gutless, soulless, heartless bureaucracy that is the VA for three years now, it seems to our family that the Air Force, my Air Force, does not care , either.”

The story continues