ACES Act of 2025
Officially: “ACES Act of 2025” Read the full text
What it does
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1Short title
This section gives the Act its short title, the ACES Act.
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1. Short title This Act may be cited as the ACES Act .
2National Academies study on prevalence and mortality of cancer among individuals who served as active duty aircrew in the Armed Forces
This section would require the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to enter into an agreement with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine under which the National Academies would conduct a study on how common cancer is and how many people die from it among covered individuals (defined below).
The study would have to do three things. First, it would have to identify exposures connected to the military jobs held by covered individuals, including exposure to chemicals, compounds, agents, and other phenomena. Second, it would have to review existing research to find any connections between those exposures and both overall cancer illness and overall cancer death, and connections to increased rates of these specific cancers: brain cancer, colon and rectal cancers, kidney cancer, lung cancer, melanoma skin cancer, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, pancreatic cancer, prostate cancer, testicular cancer, thyroid cancer, urinary bladder cancer, and any other cancers the Secretary of Veterans Affairs decides to include after consulting with the National Academies. Third, the study would have to determine, as far as this is possible, how common these cancers are and how many covered individuals die from them, using available data sources. Those sources could include health care and other administrative databases kept by the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Defense, and the individual armed services; the national death index kept by the National Center for Health Statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and the study done under section 750 of the William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 (Public Law 116-283; 134 Stat. 3716).
When the study is finished, the National Academies would have to submit a report with the study's results to the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, and the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs.
The section defines a covered individual as someone who served on active duty in the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps as an aircrew member of a fixed-wing aircraft. This includes pilots, navigators, weapons systems operators, aircraft system operators, or any other crew member who regularly flew in a fixed-wing aircraft.
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2. National Academies study on prevalence and mortality of cancer among individuals who served as active duty aircrew in the Armed Forces (a) In general The Secretary of Veterans Affairs shall enter into an agreement with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (in this section referred to as the National Academies ), under which the National Academies shall conduct a study on the prevalence and mortality of cancers among covered individuals. (b) Study The study required under subsection (a) shall— (1) identify exposures associated with military occupations of covered individuals, including relating to chemicals, compounds, agents, and other phenomena; (2) review the literature to determine associations between exposures referred to in paragraph (1) and the incidence or prevalence of overall cancer morbidity, overall cancer mortality, and increased incidence or prevalence of— (A) brain cancer; (B) colon and rectal cancers; (C) kidney cancer; (D) lung cancer; (E) melanoma skin cancer; (F) non-Hodgkin lymphoma; (G) pancreatic cancer; (H) prostate cancer; (I) testicular cancer; (J) thyroid cancer; (K) urinary bladder cancer; and (L) other cancers as determined appropriate by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, in consultation with the National Academies; and (3) determine, to the extent possible, the prevalence of and mortality from the cancers specified in paragraph (2) among covered individuals by using available sources of data, which may include— (A) health care and other administrative databases of the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Defense, and the individual Services, respectively; (B) the national death index maintained by the National Center for Health Statistics of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and (C) the study conducted under section 750 of the William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 ( Public Law 116–283 ; 134 Stat. 3716). (c) Report At the conclusion of the study required under subsection (a), the National Academies shall submit to the Secretary and to the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs of the Senate and the Committee on Veterans' Affairs of the House of Representatives a report containing the results of the study described in subsection (b). (d) Covered individual defined In this section, the term covered individual means an individual who served on active duty in the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps as an aircrew member of a fixed-wing aircraft, including as a pilot, navigator, weapons systems operator, aircraft system operator, or any other crew member who regularly flew in a fixed-wing aircraft.
Where it is
In the Senate.