Massachusetts has joined the fight to reduce job-related cancer rates in the fire service.
At a bill signing last month, Governor Maura Healey approved new legislation to ban the sale of fire fighter protective gear containing PFAS in Massachusetts by 2027. The law is one of the nation’s strongest protections for fire fighters and will play a critical role in the IAFF’s ongoing fight to combat occupational cancer.
With the IAFF’s 57th Convention taking place in Boston last week, General President Edward A. Kelly penned an op-ed in the Boston Globe to praise Massachusetts’ new law, and to call for other states to adopt similar legislation to protect the health and well-being of fire fighters across the nation.
You can read Kelly’s op-ed here or below:
Mass. just set the standard for removing PFAS from firefighter gear. Other states need to follow suit.
Boston Globe Opinion
By Edward A. Kelly
This week, 3,000 firefighters from across North America will come to Boston for the International Association of Fire Fighters’ 57th Convention,which has become a biennial tradition for our 106-year-old labor union.
Boston is where I was born and raised. It’s where my love for firefighting began; for over 26 years, I’ve served in the same firehouse my father did, Ladder 17 in the South End.
Boston is also where I started to understand the serious risk job-related cancer poses to firefighters. I’ve buried too many friends, lost too many brothers and sisters.
Firefighters are exposed to all kinds of threats — from structure fires and contagious medical patients to hazardous material accidents and natural disaster rescues. But no threat is more deadly than the one we can’t see. Our bunker gear can kill us.
Year in and year out, the majority of the names added to the IAFF’s Fallen Fire Fighter Memorial died from job-related cancer. Compared to the general public, we have a 14 percent higher risk of dying from cancer.
“Burned: Protecting the Protectors,” a short film produced by Mark Ruffalo, documents Diane Cotter’s relentless pursuit for answers after her husband, Paul, a former Worcester firefighter, was diagnosed with cancer. Her persistence led to independent studies showing firefighter bunker gear is laden with toxic PFAS chemicals.
Our gear — the very equipment meant to keep us safe — is making us sick. It’s clear that if we want cancer to stop killing firefighters, we must get carcinogens out of firefighting gear. And we are pursuing this goal on many fronts.
Governor Maura Healey recently signed a bill mandating the removal of PFAS from firefighter gear in Massachusetts. It is one of the most aggressive laws in the country, protecting firefighters by banning the sale of bunker gear with PFAS by January 2027.
Beginning in 2025, it also requires the addition of a warning label so firefighters are better informed about the toxins in our gear.
The IAFF and our affiliates, including the Professional Fire Fighters of Massachusetts, have been leading the fight to remove PFAS from our gear. With this new law, Massachusetts has become one of only two states that will ban PFAS-laden firefighter gear.
Cities like San Francisco and Vancouver have also adopted policies to phase out PFAS protective gear, and the IAFF is urging all cities and states to follow their lead.
In Washington, D.C., our union is working closely with lawmakers from both sides of the aisle to help fire departments transition away from PFAS-laden firefighting foams and fund the research and development of the next generation of PFAS-free gear.
Removing PFAS from gear isn’t easy. Chemical companies, gear manufacturers, and others have a strong financial incentive to maintain the status quo. But we will not back down. We will fight state by state, city by city, until firefighters aren’t needlessly exposed to carcinogens.
But this isn’t just about firefighters and cancer. It’s also about the public we swore an oath to serve and keep safe. We wear this carcinogenic gear into people’s homes every day when responding to calls.
That’s why Massachusetts’ new law is so important. Removing PFAS from bunker gear saves the lives of firefighters and helps us better protect the public when they need us most.
