NEW HANOVER COUNTY, N.C. (WECT) – According to the Environmental Protection Agency, PFAS (or forever chemicals) can be found in almost every American’s bloodstream. Based on your career, though, you could be more exposed than others.
The National Fire Fighter Cancer Cohort Study is starting its research into PFAS and firefighters’ health in North Carolina.
Researchers from Duke and NC State are leading the study, hoping to follow firefighters throughout their careers to analyze how PFAS are affecting them. PFAS can be found in certain types of firefighting foam and are used to make firefighters’ uniforms water and oil-repellant.
“The occupation of firefighting in 2022 was named a known carcinogen,” researcher Bryan Ormond with NC State said. “So the job these people are doing, and in many cases volunteering to do, is killing them. So we’re trying to figure out, how do we separate those terms of cancer and firefighter for good?”
Dana Sargent, the executive director of Cape Fear River Watch has been advocating against PFAS pollution for years. Her brother, Grant, who was a firefighter died of brain cancer in 2019.
“He did what he wanted,” Sargent said. “He lived his life like most people aspire to. He was extraordinary.”
There are a lot of cancer risks within firefighting, so Sargent says she will never know if PFAS was the exact reason her brother died. However, she says she’s advocating against PFAS in firefighting regardless.
“I can’t even count how many people have called me wondering if PFAS is what has caused their illness or their family member’s illness or their family member’s death,” Sargent said. “There’s a lot of questions, there’s a lot of unknowns in PFAs and there’s always going to be. Just because I don’t know specifically if my brother died because of PFAS doesn’t mean we shouldn’t remove that potential path for exposure.”
In the meantime, researchers with the National Fire Fighter Cancer Cohort Study are trying to educate firefighters about the potential risks.
“Firefighters on a daily basis, do risk assessments,” Ormond said. “So we want to give them the information so they can do the risk assessment for what gear they need to wear, how they should use it, etc.”
Researchers with the study are hoping to recruit 1000 firefighters in North Carolina for the study within the next two years.
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