A Pentagon research has found that military pilots had high rates of cancer.
Also, it has been demonstrated for the first time that the ground workers who fuel, maintain, and launch those aircraft are also developing illnesses.
Early in February, the Pentagon released the analysis, according to the Associated Press.
According to the AP, retired military aviators had long desired the information.
The number of air and ground crew members they knew who had cancer has long alarmed military aviators.
They were informed that previous military studies had determined their risk to be no higher than that of the broader American population.
Overall cancer rate among aircrews was 24% higher
However, the DoD discovered that aircrew members had 87% higher rates of melanoma and a 39% higher rate of thyroid cancer in a year-long study of over 900,000 service personnel who flew or served on military aircraft between 1992 and 2017.
Although women had a 16% higher breast cancer rate and men had a 16% higher prostate cancer rate, respectively.
According to the AP, the overall cancer rate among aircrews was 24% higher.
According to the study, ground personnel had an increased risk of kidney or renal cancer by 9%, an increased risk of thyroid cancer by 15%, and an increased risk of brain and nervous system tumors by 19%.
James Seaman, a Navy A-6 Intruder pilot, was one of those who passed away at 61 from cancer. He passed away in 2018.
He was among a number of pilots who were diagnosed with cancer.
His widow Betty Seaman has battled Congress and the Pentagon for years to look into the high rate of cancers seen by aviators and ground crew. She is one of several aviators and surviving spouses who have done so.
The investigation was mandated by Congress in the 2021 military bill
The study’s flaws, which most certainly resulted in an undercount of cancer cases, were admitted by the DoD.
Pilots who flew early-generation jets in the preceding decades may not have been included in the study’s database because it did not have reliable cancer data until 1990.
This study looked across all of the services and at both air and ground troops, in contrast to a prior study that exclusively examined Air Force pilots and discovered some increased rates of cancer.
The Military warned that despite the broader approach, the real number of cancer cases was likely to be significantly higher due to data gaps, which it said it would strive to rectify.
According to the AP, the investigation was mandated by Congress in the 2021 military bill.
The Pentagon now needs to do an even more extensive assessment to try to figure out why crews are becoming ill in light of the higher rates that were discovered.
The Pentagon took pains to point out that the new study “does not imply that military service in aircrew or ground crew occupations causes cancer, because there are multiple potential confounding factors that could not be controlled for in this analysis,” such as family histories of cancer, smoking behavior or alcohol use.
While waiting for surgery or radiation, men with localized prostate cancer might opt to actively monitor their condition as a safe alternative, according to a different study.
The recent study published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine supports this.
Researchers found that the mortality rate from the malignancy 15 years later was pretty low regardless of treatment technique, so most men shouldn’t panic following a diagnosis.