Turnout gear sold in Massachusetts and Connecticut must be free of toxic ‘forever chemicals’ by 2027 and 2028. Similar bill in California is defeated.
I am extremely suspect that they were able to remove the bias for cancer from turnout gear. These guys daily job normalizes breathing in of cancer giving dust. They disproportionately smoke because it lessens the effect of having to work in a burned out area.
I hope they have a good non-cancer giving candidate to replace the PFAs. As long as the new garments underperform the old garments they will find ways to get a hold of the old garments.
Unless these chemicals are extremely likely to cause cancer, it is probably the least cancerous thing on our gear. It’s usually covered in soot and all kinds of nasty shit. We make a huge effort to keep them out of the cab of the truck, wash them everytime they get used, and we don’t just hang out in them because of the carcinogens that get on them from use. Also, a firefighter smoking is not as common as it used to be. Far less than most other fields. Our job requires us to be in great cardiovascular condition and the few smokers get chastised for it. The culture has drifted away from being a smoke eater, we take tons of preventative measures to keep the cancer out of our bodies, but we know it’s still likely going to happen.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per-_and_polyfluoroalkyl_substances
I guess Teflon is a PFAS. The list of things that use PFASs was very long, I wonder why they went after fire fighting gear early? I couldn’t find any information on an effective alternative. To get the same thermal protection with less effective chemicals would it need to be heavier?
Edit: I guess the firefighters union is lobbying for getting rid of them, so I’d hope there’d be other effective options available. https://www.iaff.org/pfas/
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