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High rates of cancer among military pilots have been discovered by a Pentagon study.
And for the first time, it’s been shown that ground crews that fuel, maintain and launch those aircraft are getting sick as well.
The Pentagon released the study in early February, the Associated Press reported.
Retired military aviators had long sought the data, the AP said on Sunday, March 19.
The military aviators had raised alarms for years about the number of air and ground crew members they knew who had cancer.
They were told that earlier military studies had found they were not at greater risk than the general US population.
But in a yearlong study of almost 900,000 service members who flew on or worked on military aircraft between 1992 and 2017, the Pentagon found that air crew members had an 87% higher rate of melanoma and a 39% higher rate of thyroid cancer, as the AP reported.
Meanwhile, men had a 16% higher rate of prostate cancer and women a 16% higher rate of breast cancer.
Overall, the air crews had a 24% higher rate of cancer of all types, according to the AP.
The study showed ground crews had a 19% higher rate of brain and nervous system cancers, a 15% higher rate of thyroid cancer and a 9% higher rate of kidney or renal cancers.
Women, meanwhile, had a 7% higher rate of breast cancer, the same study found.
The overall rate for cancers of all types was 3% higher, the AP noted.
Navy A-6 Intruder pilot Jim Seaman was one of those who died of cancer at age 61.
