WASHINGTON: According to military briefing slides obtained by The Associated Press, nine military officers who had previously worked decades ago at a nuclear missile base in Montana have been diagnosed with blood cancer and there are "indications" the condition may be related to their service. The officers lost one of them.
The 150 Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile silos at Malmstrom Air Force Base, where all of the officers, known as missileers, are stationed, are spread out over a sizable field. According to a January briefing by U.S. Space Force Lt. Col. Daniel Sebeck, the nine officers were each given a non-Hodgkin lymphoma diagnosis.
Deep underground, missile operators enter a small operations bunker that is enclosed by a substantial concrete and steel wall using caged elevators. Sometimes they stay there for days, ready to operate the launch controls at the president's command.
Sebeck stated in slides he presented to his Space Force unit this month that there may be a link between Malmstrom AFB missile combat crew service and cancer. He expressed concern over the "disproportionate number of missileers presenting with cancer, specifically lymphoma."
When contacted by the AP via email on Saturday, Sebeck declined to comment, claiming that the slides were "pre-decisional." He claimed in the slides that the issue was crucial to the Space Force because as many as 455 former missileers, including at least four of the nine individuals named in the slides, are now employed as Space Force officers.
In a statement to the AP, Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said that “senior leaders are aware of the concerns raised about the possible association of cancer-related to missile combat crew members at Malmstrom AFB.”
Stefanek added: “The information in this briefing has been shared with the Department of the Air Force surgeon general and our medical professionals are working to gather data and understand more.”
Non-Hodgkin lymphoma, which according to the American Cancer Society affects an estimated 19 out of every 100,000 people in the U.S. annually, is a blood cancer that uses the body’s infection-fighting lymph system to spread.
Comparatively, only about 400 of the 3,300 soldiers stationed at Malmstrom at any given time are designated as missileers or support personnel for those operators. It is one of three bases in the country, along with Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota and F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming, that run a total of 400 siloed Minutemen III ICBMs.
The median age for adult non-Hodgkin lymphoma is 67, according to the National Institutes of Health. The former missileers affected are far younger. Officers are often in their 20s when they are assigned duty watch; the officer who died, who was not identified, was a Space Force officer assigned to Schreiver Space Force Base in Colorado with the rank of major, a rank typically achieved in a service member’s 30s. Two of the others are in the same Space Force unit with the rank of lieutenant colonel, which is typically reached in a service member’s early 40s.
It's not the first time the military has been notified of multiple cancer cases at Malmstrom. The Air Force Institute for Operational Health investigated the base in 2001 after 14 cancers of various types were reported among missileers who had served there, including two cases of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
However, the review concluded that the base was environmentally safe and that "sometimes illnesses tend to occur by chance alone." The report lamented that the list of those diagnosed had been compiled because it "perpetuates the level of concern."
The discovery of new cases coincides with the US government's increased willingness to acknowledge the environmental hazards, or toxic exposures, that troops may face while serving.
"We are heartbroken for all who have lost loved ones or are currently facing cancer of any kind," Air Force spokeswoman Stefanek said in a statement to the AP.
It was unclear whether some of the nine officers named in the January briefing slides, who were diagnosed between 1997 and 2007, overlapped with some of the cases identified in the Air Force's 2001 investigation. It's also unclear whether there have been similar reports of cancers at other nuclear silo bases, or whether the Air Force is looking into it.
"Missileers have always been concerned about known hazards in the workplace, such as exposure to chemicals, asbestos, polychlorinated biphenyls, lead, and other hazardous materials," Sebeck stated in the January slides. "For the rest of their lives, all missileers should be screened and tracked."
President Joe Biden signed the PACT Act last year, which greatly expanded the types of illnesses and toxic exposures that would be considered presumptive — meaning that a service member or veteran would not have to prove to the government that the injury was caused by their military service in order to receive covered care.
Source: AP News