MONTANA

Carcinogens found at nuclear missile sites as cancer reports surface

WASHINGTON – 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.

A new cleanup effort has been ordered.

The discovery “is the first from an extensive sampling of active U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile bases to address specific cancer concerns raised by missile community members,” Air Force Global Strike Command said in an Aug. 7 release. In those samples, two launch facilities at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana showed PCB levels higher than the thresholds recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency.

PCBs are oily or waxy substances that have been identified as a likely carcinogen by the EPA. Non-Hodgkin lymphoma is a blood cancer that uses the body’s infection-fighting lymph system to spread.

After a military briefing was obtained by The Associated Press in January showing that at least nine current or former missileers at Malmstrom were diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a rare blood cancer, the Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine launched a study to look at cancers among the entire missile community checking for the possibility of clusters of the disease.

There could be hundreds more cancers of all types, based on new data from a grassroots group of former missile launch officers and their surviving family members.

The Minuteman III silos and underground control centers were built more than 60 years ago. Much of the electronics and infrastructure is decades old. Missileers have raised health concerns multiple times over the years about ventilation, water quality and potential toxins they cannot avoid as they spend 24 to 48 hours on duty underground.

Clinic files for bankruptcy after asbestos claims ruled false

BILLINGS – A health clinic in a Montana town plagued by deadly asbestos contamination has filed for bankruptcy protection after a judge ordered it to pay the government almost $6 million in penalties and damages for submitting hundreds of false claims for benefits.

The federal bankruptcy filing, submitted on Aug. 8, will allow the Center for Asbestos Related Disease clinic in the small town of Libby to continue operating while it appeals the judgment, said clinic director Tracy McNew.

A seven-person jury in June found the clinic submitted 337 false claims that made patients eligible for Medicare and other benefits they shouldn’t have received. The federally-funded clinic has been at the forefront of the medical response to deadly pollution from mining near Libby that left the town and the surrounding area contaminated with toxic asbestos dust.

The $6 million judgment against it came in a federal case filed by BNSF Railway under the False Claims Act, which allows private parties to sue on the government’s behalf. The clinic has denied any intentional wrongdoing and its attorneys have appealed the jury’s verdict to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The clinic has certified more than 3,400 people with asbestos-related diseases and received more than $20 million in federal funding, according to court documents.

The jury did not identify the 337 patients who were the subject of the false claims and federal officials have not said if they will lose any benefits. Under a provision in the 2009 federal health law, victims of asbestos exposure in the Libby area are eligible for taxpayer-funded services including Medicare, housekeeping, travel to medical appointments and disability benefits for those who can’t work.

NEBRASKA

Judge OKs abortion limits, restrictions on gender-affirming surgery

A Nebraska judge on Aug. 11 rejected an effort to block a ban on abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy and restrictions on gender-affirming surgery.

Lancaster County District Court Judge Lori Maret sided with the state and allowed a law approved by the Nebraska legislature earlier this year to remain in effect.

The law outlaws abortion after 12 weeks of pregnancy with exceptions for rape, incest and to save the life of the mother. As of Oct. 1, it also will prevent people under 19 from receiving gender-affirming surgery and restricts the use of hormone treatments and puberty blockers for minors.

Planned Parenthood of the Heartland had filed a lawsuit arguing legislators violated a constitutional requirement that bills not contain more than one subject. Lawmakers added the abortion ban to an existing bill dealing with gender-related care.

The attorney general contended the issues didn’t violate the rule because they were both health related.

Ruth Richardson, CEO of Planned Parenthood North Central States, called the decision a “devastating blow to Nebraskans’ fundamental right to make what should be private decisions between them and their doctors.”

Richardson said the organization would continue to provide abortions before 12 weeks of pregnancy.

NEW MEXICO

Biden wants to assist those sickened by nuclear testing

BELEN – President Joe Biden said on Aug. 9 that he’s open to granting assistance for people sickened by exposure to radiation during nuclear weapons testing, including in New Mexico, where the world’s first atomic bomb was tested in 1945.

Biden brought up the issue while speaking in Belen at a factory that produces wind towers.

The state’s place in American history as a testing ground has gotten more attention recently with the release of “Oppenheimer,” a movie about physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and the top-secret Manhattan Project.

Biden watched the film last week while on vacation in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

Democratic Sen. Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico spoke of how the first bomb was tested on soil just south of where the event was. The senator also discussed getting an amendment into the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, which gives payments to people who become ill from nuclear weapons tests or uranium mining during the Cold War.

In July, the U.S. Senate voted to expand compensation. The provisions would extend health care coverage and compensation to so-called downwinders exposed to radiation during weapons testing to several new regions stretching from New Mexico to Guam.

Virgin Galactic’s first space tourists finally soar

TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES – Virgin Galactic rocketed to the edge of space with its first tourists on Aug. 10 – a former British Olympian who bought his ticket 18 years ago and a mother-daughter duo from the Caribbean.

The space plane glided back to a runway landing at Spaceport America in the New Mexico desert, after a brief flight that gave passengers a few minutes of weightlessness.

This first private customer flight had been delayed for years; its success means Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic can now start offering monthly rides, joining Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX in the space tourism business.

Jon Goodwin, 80, who competed in canoeing in the 1972 Olympics, was among the first to buy a Virgin Galactic ticket in 2005 and feared, after later being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, that he’d be out of luck. Since then he’s climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and cycled back down, and said he hopes his spaceflight shows others with Parkinson’s and other illnesses that “it doesn’t stop you doing things.”

Ticket prices were $200,000 when Goodwin signed up. The cost is now $450,000.

He was joined on the flight by sweepstakes winner Keisha Schahaff, 46, a health coach from Antigua, and her daughter, Anastatia Mayers, 18.

The rocket ship’s portion of the flight lasted about 15 minutes and it reached 55 miles high.

It was Virgin Galactic’s seventh trip to space since 2018, but the first with a ticket-holder. Branson, the company’s founder, hopped on board for the first full-size crew ride in 2021. About 800 people are currently on Virgin Galactic’s waiting list, according to the company.