'We are dropping like flies.' Ex-fighter pilots push for earlier cancer screenings

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WASHINGTON — Former Air Force and Navy fighter pilots are calling on the
military to begin cancer screenings for aviators as young as 30 because of an
increase in deaths from the disease that they suspect may be tied to radiation
emitted in the cockpit.

“We are dropping like flies in our 50s from aggressive cancers,” said retired
Air Force Col. Eric Nelson, a former F-15E Strike Eagle weapons officer. He
cited prostate and esophageal cancers, lymphoma, and glioblastomas that have
struck fellow pilots he knew, commanded or flew with.

Nelson’s prostate cancer was first detected at age 48, just three months after
he retired from the Air Force. In his career he has more than 2,600 flying
hours, including commanding the 455th Air Expeditionary Group in Bagram,
Afghanistan, and as commander of six squadrons of F-15E fighter jets at the 4th
Operations Group at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina.

Last month McClatchy reported on a new Air Force study that reviewed the risk
for prostate cancers among its fighter pilots and new Veterans Health
Administration data showing that the rate of reported cases of prostate cancers
per year among veterans using the VA health care system across all services has
risen almost 16% since fiscal year 2000.

The Air Force study also looked at cockpit exposure, finding that “pilots have
greater environmental exposure to ultraviolet and ionizing radiation … (fighter
pilots) have unique intra-cockpit exposures to non-ionizing radiation.”

Retired Navy Cmdr. Mike Crosby served as a radar intercept officer in F-14
fighter jets from 1984 to 1997, accumulating over 2,000 flight hours. He started
Veterans Prostate Cancer Awareness Inc. in 2016 after his own prostate cancer
diagnosis at age 55.

“I think there’s been a lot of avoidance in addressing this issue,” he said.
Crosby and other pilots who contacted McClatchy said they suspect the cancers in
their community may be linked to prolonged exposure in the cockpit to radiation
from the radar systems on their advanced jets, or other sources such as from
cockpit oxygen generation systems.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported that exposure to
some types of radiation can cause cancer, however to date there has been no link
established between the specific radiation emitted from radars on these advanced
jets and the illnesses pilots are now seeing.

Navy and Air Force pilots told McClatchy about their battles with cancer, their
frustrations about what they saw as the limitations of the Air Force study, and
about former pilots who have died from cancer.

“When you’re 30 years old you need to start screening for prostate cancer, even
if it comes out of your own pocket,” Nelson said. “You need to see a urologist
once a year. Not your primary care physician, not your flight doc. Pay the money
and stick around for your great-grandkids.”

If the military would begin screening for cancer earlier, “that would save
lives,” Nelson said. The military’s health care system, TRICARE, currently
covers prostate cancer screenings at age 50 for service members with no family
history of the disease, and as young as age 40 if there is a family history of
the disease in two or more family members. The pilots who spoke with McClatchy
said they did not have a family history of prostate cancer when they were
diagnosed.

Retired Navy Cmdr. Thomas Hill was a career F-4 and F-14 pilot and squadron
commanding officer with more than 3,600 flight hours and more than 960 aircraft
carrier landings. Hill was 52 when he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. In
December 2011, at age 60, he learned he also had esophageal cancer.

Hill has spent the last two years tracking premature deaths or cancers among
former commanding officers of F-14 squadrons. So far he’s found more than a
dozen who have either been diagnosed or have died from the disease.

“God, they’re all my friends,” he said.


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