RESOURCES

Service members who worked at nuclear weapons facilities seek answers.

For years, it was an open secret among missileers that the Cold War-era missile alert facilities and launch control centers where they’d spend days sleeping, eating and staying on alert in case of nuclear armageddon were filled with things that might get them sick — carcinogens such as PCBs, lead paint, asbestos and tainted water. And every missileer veteran had at least one close friend who was battling a form of cancer.

A large pool of dark liquid festering on the floor. No fresh air. Computer displays that would overheat and ooze out a fishy-smelling gel that nauseated the crew. Asbestos readings 50 times higher than the Environmental Protection Agency’s safety standards.

These are just some of the past toxic risks that were in the underground capsules and silos where Air Force nuclear missile crews have worked since the 1960s. Now many of those service members have cancer.

The Air Force is expanding its study of whether service members who worked with nuclear missiles have had unusually high rates of cancer after a preliminary review determined that a deeper examination is needed. The initial study was launched in response to reports that many who served are now ill. The Air Force isn’t making its initial findings of cancer numbers public for a month or so, but released its initial assessment Monday that more review is necessary.

The Air Force said it is now examining whether 14 different cancers may be more prevalent among its active-duty and veteran missileers and expanding an ongoing study to see if service has put their health at increased risk.

The Air Force has detected unsafe levels of a likely carcinogen at underground launch control centers at a Montana nuclear missile base where a striking number of men and women have reported cancer diagnoses.

The Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine sent teams to all three intercontinental ballistic missile wings to test for exposure hazards within missile alert facilities.

The tests are part of the ongoing missile community cancer study.

The community of missileers who have spent years standing watch in concrete bunkers for days at a time while operating America’s nuclear arsenal are voicing concern about a presentation detailing a possible link between their service and cancer.

The Air Force is looking into a possible association between cancer and missile combat crew member service at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Montana after a Space Force lieutenant colonel discovered that some former Malmstrom missileers developed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) after serving at the base between the late 1990s and the late 2000s.

Following recent reporting on the high incidence of cancer among Missileers who served at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Cascade County, Montana, U.S. Senator Jon Tester is demanding answers and urging senior leaders at the Department of Defense (DOD) and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to take immediate action to ensure every potentially impacted veteran or servicemember is identified and receives an appropriate health assessment.

Nine military officers who worked decades ago on a nuclear missile base in Montana have been diagnosed with blood cancer and there are ‘indications’ it’s linked to their service, documents show. The officers, known as missileers, were assigned as many as 25 years ago to Malmstrom Air Force Base, home to a vast field of 150 Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile silos.