WASHINGTON (AP) — The Air Force’s review of cancers among its nuclear missile corps will include all personnel who worked on, guarded, supported or operated the nation’s ground-based warheads, Air Force Global Strike Command announced Wednesday.
Nine officers who had worked as missileers — the airmen who launch the warheads from underground silos and control centers — at Montana’s Malmstrom Air Force Base were diagnosed with with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a type of blood cancer, Lt. Col. Daniel Sebeck of U.S. Space Force reported last month in a briefing obtained by The Associated Press.
Since that briefing, more missileers and missile support crew have come forward to the AP and other media outlets to report they, too, have been diagnosed with either non-Hodgkin lymphoma or other types of cancers.
The Air Force review will extend beyond Malmstrom to include F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming and Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota. Together the three bases operate 450 silos that house the nation’s arsenal of ground-based nuclear warheads carried by Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles.
