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Lawmaker urges military breast cancer study

A senior lawmaker is pushing for a joint Defense Department and Veterans Affairs Department study of breast cancer rates in service members and veterans to determine if there is a link to military service.

Rep. Leonard Boswell, D-Iowa, the chief sponsor of a bill ordering the study, said the 18-month effort he is proposing would be a “first step to determining if breast cancer is service-connected.”

“There is significant anecdotal evidence that men and women who are serving or have served in our armed forces are being diagnosed with breast cancer at an alarming rate, especially for their age,” said Boswell, a Vietnam veteran who spent 20 years in the Army.

His bill, HR 3926, the Armed Forces Breast Cancer Research Act, asks for a joint report in 18 months that would report on the number of service members and veterans — male and female — who have been diagnosed with breast cancer, what kind of treatment they have received and demographic information about the age and service of the victims. Additionally, the report would address whether defense and VA officials see any service-related breast cancer risk.

The legislation comes as lawmakers and the government are looking into claims of an unusual incidence of breast cancer among men who once served at Camp Lejuene, N.C., a base that has a history of environmental problems, including contaminated water. The Senate Armed Services Committee is considering holding a hearing specifically on the Lejuene problem at the urging of Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C.

Boswell’s press secretary, Jane Slusark, said the congressman’s interest in the bill came not from Camp Lejuene, but from a woman on his staff, an Iraq veteran who recently attended a five-year post-deployment reunion. At the reunion, one woman talked of coming home, discovering breast cancer and having a double mastectomy.

“Through the course of the night, the people at the reunion were able to piece together that at least six women who they were deployed with had come back from their deployment in Iraq with breast cancer, ages 25 to 35 years old,” Slusark said.

A half-dozen other women reported new lumps in their breasts, she said. “With 70 women deployed with the battalion, this incident rate in young women seemed high,” she said.

Boswell introduced the bill after discovering that VA and DoD did not have any conclusive data on breast cancer incident in service members, Slusark said.

Boswell, serving his seventh term in Congress, said that if the study shows the possibility of a link to military service, he would try to get breast cancer classified as a service-connected disability.

“It is the responsibility of Congress and our government to conduct research on the incidence rate of breast cancer in men and women in the armed forces when their greater risk may be a result of defending our country,” Boswell said.