I don’t get angry very often, but my blood pressure spiked earlier this week. American City and County reported the release of "Assessing State Firefighter Cancer Presumption Laws and Current Firefighter Cancer Research," a study commissioned by the National League of Cities and compiled by TriData Division. The study found no correlation between firefighters and cancer, said the report.
NLC’s press release on the report reads, “There is no substantial scientific evidence that firefighters suffer higher cancer rates than the general population,” and calls into question the "presumption laws" passed in 24 states that allow firefighters with cancer to collect workers' compensation without proving that they contracted the disease as a result of their job.”
Over the past 30 years, TriData has produced excellent reports based on careful research — including a review of the Navy’s emergency services and Chicago Fire Department high-rise operations — and FIRE CHIEF has published their results.
TriData President Phil Schaenman was unavailable to comment on the findings, but I spoke with Patricia Frazier, director on the NLC report. She seemed frustrated that people focused on the press release or executive statement without reading the full report.
I forwarded the report to Bruce Evans, FIRE CHIEF’s EMS columnist and EMS chief for North Las Vegas. “Everybody responded to the press release and not reading the entire report,” said Evans. The IAFC and the IAFF are preparing a statement to refute the report.
While Evans said there is some validity in the report, he feels there are two or three faults in the study, including the fact that the report only reviewed data compiled in since 1996.
“In the last 10 years, all the research has been done by the drug companies and based on treatment assessments,” Evans said. “The best firefighter cancer study was done in 1988, compiled when a lot of funding was going on in actual universities that study cancer, especially by groups to the benefit of the study.”
Evans said the interesting part of the report were the charts at the end where cancers are broken down into high-, moderate-, low and no-probability in relation to firefighting. Evans was surprised that the report stated that Hodgkin’s and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma had strong-probability link to firefighting; larynx cancer did, too, but gastrointestinal cancer did not. Testicular cancer was highly probable, but prostrate cancer was not.
Evans also added that the report’s premise is that one of two people will get cancer in their lifetime, and that’s no different for firefighters. “However, the biggest block of those people who will get cancer are in their 60s, 70s and 80s,” said Evans. “It’s not the younger population of people.”
Over the past several years, the Assistance to Firefighters Grants funded studies of cancer in firefighters, with significant results. Something doesn’t make sense, and I’m currently awaiting further discussions with TriData.
Until then, get a copy of the book “The Pandora Prescription,” by James Sheridan, a novel about pharmaceutical companies and a medical cover-up. It’s fiction — or so he says.
