High cancer rates in military pilots were discovered by a Pentagon study.
And for the first time it has been shown that ground crew who fuel, service and take off these planes also get sick.
The Pentagon released the study in early February, the Associated Press reported.
Retired military aviators had been searching for the data for a long time, the AP said Sunday, March 19.
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For years, military aviators had raised alarms about the number of known air and ground crew members with cancer.
They were told that previous military studies had found they were at no greater risk than the general US population.
Navy A-6 Intruder pilot Jim Seaman died of cancer at the age of 61. He is among a group of pilots who have been diagnosed with cancer, the Associated Press reported. His widow, Betty Seaman, is among a large group of aviators and surviving spouses who have campaigned for years for Congress and the Pentagon to investigate the number of aviators and ground crew with cancer. (Betty Seaman via AP)
But in a year-long study of nearly 900,000 military personnel who flew or worked on military aircraft between 1992 and 2017, the Pentagon found that flight crew members had an 87% higher rate of melanoma and a 39% higher rate of thyroid cancer than the AP reports.
Meanwhile, men had a 16% higher rate of prostate cancer and women had a 16% higher rate of breast cancer.
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Overall, flight crews had a 24% higher rate of cancer of all types, according to the AP.
The study showed that ground crew had a 19% higher rate of brain and nervous system cancer, a 15% higher rate of thyroid cancer, and a 9% higher rate of kidney or kidney cancer.
Overall, flight crews had a 24% higher rate of all types of cancer, the study found.
Women, on the other hand, had a 7% higher rate of breast cancer, the same study found.
The overall rate for cancer of all types was 3% higher, the AP found.
Navy A-6 Intruder pilot Jim Seaman was among those who died of cancer at the age of 61. He died in 2018.
Navy A-6 Intruder Pilot Jim Seaman stands in front of his jet. He died of lung cancer in 2018 at the age of 61. (Betty Seaman via AP)
He is among a group of pilots who have been diagnosed with cancer, the Associated Press reported.
His widow, Betty Seaman, is among a large group of aviators and surviving spouses who have campaigned for years for Congress and the Pentagon to investigate the number of aviators and ground crew with cancer.
The Pentagon acknowledged that the study had gaps that likely led to undercounting of cancer cases.
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The military health system database used in the study did not contain reliable cancer data until 1990 — so it may not have included pilots who had flown early-generation jets in previous decades.
Also some good news
But there was also good news to report.
Both ground and air crews had far lower rates of lung cancer, and air crews also had lower rates of bladder and colon cancers.
Navy A-6 Intruder pilot Jim Seaman leaned on the wing of his jet. Seaman is one of a group of pilots who died from cancer. (Betty Seaman via AP)
After adjusting for age, gender, and race, the data compared service members to the US general population.
The Pentagon said the new study is one of the largest and most comprehensive yet conducted.
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A previous study looked only at Air Force pilots – and some found higher rates of cancer, while this study looked at all services and both air and ground personnel.
The study was requested by Congress as part of the 2021 Defense Act.
Despite the broader approach, the Pentagon warned that the true number of cancer cases was likely to be even higher due to gaps in the data – which it said would be fixed.
The study was required by Congress in the 2021 defense bill, the AP noted.
Now that higher rates have been found, the Pentagon needs to conduct an even more comprehensive review to try to understand why crews get sick.
The Pentagon can be seen from Air Force One in this file photo as it flies over Washington in March 2022. In light of the results of the new cancer study, the Pentagon must now conduct an even broader review to try to understand why crews get sick. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, file)
The Pentagon went out of its way to point out that the new study “does not imply that military service in aircrew or ground crew occupations causes cancer because there are several potential confounders that could not be controlled for in this analysis,” such as: B. Family histories of cancer, smoking habits or alcohol consumption.
Localized prostate cancer
Meanwhile, a very different study found that men with localized prostate cancer who wish to avoid immediate surgery or radiation can safely choose to actively monitor the disease as a treatment modality.
That’s according to a recent study published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine.
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The study’s researchers noted that most men should not panic or make treatment decisions after a diagnosis because the mortality rate from the cancer was relatively low 15 years later, regardless of the treatment approach.
The study started in the UK in 1999.
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It included 2,664 men between the ages of 50 and 69 diagnosed with localized prostate cancer.
Of these men, 1,643 were enrolled in a study examining three different treatment modalities — surgery to remove tumors (553), radiation (545), and active surveillance (545).
Elizabeth Pritchett of Fox News Digital and The Associated Press contributed coverage.
Source : www.foxnews.com