On August 13, 2023, the full text of the proposed Aviator Cancer Examination Study (ACES) Act was posted at congress.gov. The full text of the bill is attached. As of August 17, 2023, the ACES Act is not yet introduced in the U.S. Senate. The AMIC is working to identify interested Senators who will sponsor then introduce a bill, like the House version, in the Senate. 

Flight Plan: H.R. 4886 moves through committee in the House and onto the floor early year where it should be included within the House version of the FY2025 Veterans Administration Authorization Act as a line-item funded multi-year cancer nexus study. This flight plan also includes a matching progression through the Senate so that the respective House and Senate ACES Act version(s) meet in conference; are reconciled, then a final version emerges which makes it into the final FY25 VA authorization act signed by the President, then enacted. 

Recall while we have two landmark aviator cancer incidence/mortality studies (USAF 2021 + DOD 2023) we have no nexus studies—no studies that identify *what* in the military aviation operating environment is causing Veteran military aviators to suffer cancer rates significantly greater than the US general population. This is the importance of the nexus study described, above.

The study proposed within the ACES Act would be a multi-year study conducted by the National Academy of Sciences-Engineering-Medicine (NASEM) to determine what are the likely causes of elevated cancer rates in Veteran military flyers. The AMIC suspects that any cancer causation study will re-identify chemicals, compounds, and phenomena previously identified as either carcinogenic or harmful to human health. However, we think a well-designed study of cancer causation in military aviation may identify new causes previously unidentified or unknown. As always, we are led by the science; wherever it takes us.

A product of the RRVA Aviation Medical Issues Committee questions email: medical@river-rats.org