A study by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory’s 711th Human Performance Wing found evidence that fighter pilots and crew members have a higher chance of being diagnosed with cancer.
US Air Force, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The study compared 34,679 fighter pilots and weapon system officers against 411,998 Air Force officers who flew other types of aircraft.
In the study, fighter pilots and their crew were found to be 29 percent more likely to develop testicular cancer, 24 percent more likely to develop melanoma, and 23 percent more likely to develop prostate cancer than their non-fighter peers.
Researchers focused on four Vietnam-era warplanes, the F-100, F-4, F-105, and RF-4, to examine the rates of cancer among their crews.
“Male fighter aviators who flew the F-100 had greater odds of being diagnosed and dying from colon and rectum cancer, pancreas cancer, melanoma skin cancer, prostate cancer, and brain cancer. They also had greater odds of being diagnosed and dying from thyroid cancer and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, despite similar odds of diagnosis,” according to the study.
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