RESOURCES

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.