{"id":13296,"date":"2020-03-03T13:16:14","date_gmt":"2020-03-03T18:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/steep\/?p=13296"},"modified":"2020-05-11T19:01:35","modified_gmt":"2020-05-11T23:01:35","slug":"women-firefighters-face-high-exposure-to-toxic-forever-chemicals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/steep\/women-firefighters-face-high-exposure-to-toxic-forever-chemicals\/","title":{"rendered":"Women firefighters face high exposure to toxic \u2018forever chemicals\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_13302\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13302\" style=\"width: 500px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-13302\" src=\"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1022\/Women_firefighters_image-1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" srcset=\"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/steep\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1022\/Women_firefighters_image-1.jpeg 640w, https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/steep\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1022\/Women_firefighters_image-1-200x113.jpeg 200w, https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/steep\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1022\/Women_firefighters_image-1-150x84.jpeg 150w, https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/steep\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1022\/Women_firefighters_image-1-364x205.jpeg 364w, https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/steep\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1022\/Women_firefighters_image-1-500x281.jpeg 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-13302\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Maiko Bristow, a firefighter and EMT with the San Francisco Fire Department, is part of a long-term investigation into female firefighter\u2019s risk of breast cancer. Image credit: Brittany Hosea-Small, UC Berkeley<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Firefighters are exposed to PFAS through their turnout gear\u2014coat, boots and helmet\u2014and use of firefighting foams. While studies are beginning to document higher rates of cancer among firefighters, these studies have primarily focused on men. \u201cThis is the first study, to our knowledge, that\u2019s been done on women firefighters,\u201d said Rachel Morello-Frosch, a professor at UC Berkeley and lead researcher of the study. \u201cThe idea of characterizing women\u2019s workplace exposures is something that few people are paying any attention to, and here, we are using the newest available technologies to start to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The study was conducted in San Francisco, chosen because it has more women firefighters than any other urban fire department in the country, making up approximately 15% of the San Francisco fire force, compared to about 5% nationwide. Blood samples were collected and analyzed from 86 women firefighters and 84 women who work in downtown offices. Three types of PFAS (PFHxS, PFUnDA, and PFNA) were found to be significantly higher in the firefighters\u2019 blood, compared to office workers\u2019 blood.<\/p>\n<p>Each participant received a digital report generated by the Silent Spring Institute, detailing their individual results. It also provided steps for reducing their PFAS exposure, including many basic measures, like immediately wiping down exposed areas of skin and removing and cleaning turnout gear after an incident and promoting the use of PFAS-free firefighting foams.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are here, and our health is important,\u201d said Heather Buren, a lieutenant with the San Francisco Fire Department and principal investigator of the Women Firefighters Biomonitoring Collaborative.&nbsp; \u201cIn many occupations, women are often overlooked and understudied. Firefighting is no different.\u201d This study hopes to be the first step towards better understanding the occupational health impacts on women to benefit all firefighters nationally.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.berkeley.edu\/2020\/02\/26\/women-firefighters-face-high-exposure-to-toxic-forever-chemicals\/\"><strong>Read full story<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A study led by researchers at UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco, and the Silent Spring Institute finds that women firefighters are exposed to higher levels of PFAS than women working in downtown offices and are at potentially greater risk for breast cancer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1002,"featured_media":13299,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pfas-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/steep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/steep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/steep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/steep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1002"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/steep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13296"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/steep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13317,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/steep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13296\/revisions\/13317"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/steep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/steep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/steep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/steep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}