Ten-hut! Agent Orange. And now this: Higher cancer rates confirmed in military pilots, ground crews
Special vets issue
A just-released Pentagon study found abnormally high rates of cancer —including prostate cancer—among military pilots. The study also shows, for the first time, higher cancer rates in ground crews who fuel, maintain, and launch aircraft.
The yearlong “Study on the Incidence of Cancer Diagnosis and Mortality Among Military Aviators and Aviation Support Personnel” included nearly 900,000 personnel who flew on or worked on military aircraft between 1992 and 2017. This covers deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Somalia, Uganda, and on and on.
Researchers found in aircrew members an 87 percent higher rate of melanoma, 39 percent higher rate of thyroid cancer, 16 percent higher rate of prostate cancer, and a 24 percent higher rate of cancer for all sites.
Ground crew members had a higher incidence of cancers of the brain and nervous system (by 19 percent), thyroid (by 15 percent), melanoma (by 9 percent), kidney and renal pelvis (by 9 percent), and of all sites (by 3 percent).
However, aircrew and ground crew had lower or similar cancer mortality rates for all cancer types compared to the U.S. population. Both ground and air crews had far lower rates of lung cancer, and air crews also had lower rates of bladder and colon cancers.
Researchers now move on to identify risk factors for these cancer diagnoses.
Retired military aviators have sounded the alarm 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 U.S. population.
The new study dramatically reverses that view.
(USN)
The Pentagon said the new study was one of the largest and most comprehensive to date. An earlier study had looked at just Air Force pilots and had found some higher rates of cancer, while the new one looked across all services and at both air and ground crews. Even with the wider approach, the Pentagon cautioned that the actual number of cancer cases was likely to be even higher because of gaps in the data, which it said it would work to remedy.
The study notes: “There are known gaps in military cancer case data with no Department of Defense data source containing complete data on cancer diagnoses prior to 1990. This has likely resulted in the Phase 1-a study having underreported the number of military cancer cases since data from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and civilian cancer registries were not included. This lack of cancer data on veterans, Reserve, and National Guard members could bias the results.”
The study “proves that it’s well past time for leaders and policymakers to move from skepticism to belief and active assistance,” retired Air Force Col. Vince Alcazar, a member of the Red River Valley Fighter Pilots Association, told Associated Press.
(Airstrike in Somalia.)
The Pentagon also said this 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, smoking or alcohol use.
The legacy of Agent Orange: ‘the horror … the horror
(Spraying the jungle with Agent Orange.)
By Howard Wolinsky
This situation with cancers in aircrews and ground crews is reminiscent of the Agent Orange fiasco.
Agent Orange is a chemical herbicide and defoliant. Agent Orange was produced in the United States in the late 1940s and was used in industrial agriculture and was also sprayed along railroads and power lines to control undergrowth in forests.
During the Vietnam War, the U.S. military procured over 20 million gallons of Agent Orange, as part of its herbicidal warfare program during the Vietnam War from 1961 to 1971. It caused widespread environmental and human damage, spread genetically to the offspring of those exposed in some cases.
An irony: I know a Vietnam vet who felt that Agent Orange saved his life during his tour in Vietnam. This officer said the defoliant prevented the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong from ambushing his platoon. The spray cleared the jungle of hiding places.
Ironically, “lifesaving” Agent Orange also caused prostate cancer and kidney cancer in this vet.
As Marlon Brando’s renegade Colonel Walter E. Kurtz summarized the war in “Apocolypse Now”: “the horror … the horror.
(DreamStudio AI of Agent Orange mission.)
Agent Orange caused environmental damage, and it took a toll on both sides in the conflict, including in offspring of those who had been exposed.
The government of Vietnam says that up to 4 million of its people were exposed to the defoliant, and as many as three million people have suffered illness because of Agent Orange—figures the U.S. government disputes.
The U.S., for many years, denied any impact of Agent Orange on American soldiers, too. But as in the new case of the aircrews and ground crews, the U.S. has changed its position over time as evidence has built.
The US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) has linked exposure to Agent Orange (and some other herbicides) to certain cancers and cancer precursors in its most recent report, Veterans and Agent Orange: Update 11 (2018):
According to NASEM:
There is sufficient evidence of an association between Super Orange and:
Soft tissue sarcoma
Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL)
Hodgkin lymphoma
Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), including hairy cell leukemia and other chronic B-cell leukemias
Monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS), a precursor of multiple myeloma
Limited/suggestive evidence of an association
Cancers of the lung, bronchus, and trachea (windpipe)
Cancer of the larynx (voice box)
Prostate cancer
Multiple myeloma
Bladder cancer
These categories provide a framework for US government policy decisions regarding compensation for US Vietnam veterans.
Veterans with cancers not on this list can still file for disability benefits, although they’ll need to submit more supporting evidence for the claim.
The Department of Veterans Affairs now “presumes” the validity of veterans’ Agent Orange claims depending on their disease and where and when they served. For more information, click here. The amount of the monthly payment is determined by the extent of the disability.
The American Cancer Society tells vets: “Be sure your doctor knows if you have been exposed to Agent Orange. Because of the possibility of increased cancer risk, your doctor might advise you to get certain cancer screening tests and to promptly report any suspicious symptoms.”
Support for vets with prostate cancer
By Howard Wolinsky
The AnCan Foundation offers a support group for veterans with prostate cancer and other ailments. For more information, go to: https://ancan.org/veterans/
The chat virtual group meets on the 4th Thursday of the month at 8 pm Eastern, 7 pm Central, 6 pm Mountain and 5 pm Pacific in the AnCan Barniskis Room. You can join online by clicking here, or by phone at +1 646 749 3127 Access # 222-583-973. es.
Also, read about veterans group leader Marine Corps Capt. (Ret.) Joe Gallo, who was exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam, and his efforts on behalf of veterans.
Joe has been my veteran collaborator and hero on ASPI, AnCan and ZERO groups to support men on Active Surveillance.
Joe apparently has never met a support group or prostate cancer patient he didn’t like. He supports Active Surveillance even as he personally has moved on to treatment.
Mike Richman, managing editor of VA Research Communications, in part, wrote about Joe:
“While serving in Da Nang in South Vietnam, Marine Corps Veteran Joe Gallo was exposed to Agent Orange, the chemical defoliant used at the time by the military. VA recognizes certain cancers and other health problems, including prostate cancer, as presumptive diseases linked to exposure to Agent Orange and other herbicides.
Shortly after being diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2017, Gallo became involved with AnCan, a peer support health care network. The group coordinates virtual meetings for patients with such diseases as prostate cancer, breast cancer, brain cancer or multiple sclerosis.
Gallo came to realize that AnCan offered no breakout support group for prostate cancer patients like himself on active surveillance.
(A young Capt. Gallo at ease—protecting democracy as we know it)
Active surveillance is a watch-and-wait type of approach for men with low-risk prostate cancer. It calls for regular PSA tests and biopsies to monitor the status of the cancer and make sure it doesn’t become aggressive.
He collaborated with two other AnCan prostate cancer patients on active surveillance – Howard Wolinsky and Mark Lichty – to create a virtual support group dedicated to active surveillance. They shared the idea with AnCan founder Rick Davis and the group became a reality.
“We all thought prostate cancer patients need help figuring out which way to go,” Gallo said. “We started having monthly meetings and invited everybody from newbies to people who had been on active surveillance for 20 years.”
Today, Gallo and Wolinsky run the breakout group. They moderate virtual peer-to-peer meetings every Wednesday evening that are sometimes attended by hundreds of men on active surveillance, including many from other countries. The participants ask questions and offer support to other men with low-risk prostate cancer.”
My question is off topic so It's a shot in the dark, but I'd greatly appreciate any advice concerning the post-procedure experience of prostate cancer patients who do brachytherapy. I'm 83, live alone, am riddled with a neuroendocrine cancer that already makes life difficult and, while I've been determined a good candidate for brachtherapy by both my urologist and my oncologist, I don't want to plunge into something whose after-effects will make my last (years? months?) much more difficult. Sincere thanks. Frank Miceli fsmiceli@gmail.com