Firefighters and "Forever Chemicals": PFAS Exposure and Health Risks

Hello, my name is Audule and I'm Natalie and welcome to the PFAS Chronicles. In recent years, public health advocates and scientists have raised awareness on the class of chemicals known as PFAS or PER and polyfluoroalcal substances, also known as forever chemicals. In this five-part series, we'll take our listeners on a deep dive into the history of PFAS. We will discuss what we currently know about them, how they harm our health, and what action scientists are taking to remove them from the environment. We'll hear from key scientists and major institutions across the US on all things PFAS related. We will also hear from advocates and community members to understand how we can both advocate for and protect public health. Stay tuned for more. Hello and welcome back to the PFAS Chronicles. In this episode, we'll focus on how PFAS impacts the firefighting community and what we can do to change the conversation. With us today, our Ishikhan and Jamie Hanqawa of the Nantucket PFAS Action Group, a group of concerned citizens hoping to educate their local community about the effects of environmental pollution. Hi, Ishia and Jamie. Welcome to the conversation. Hello. Hi, nice to meet you. Well first, we would love to hear your story of how you came to advocacy. What inspired you to become a community activist and how did this network come to be? Um, well, actually, so I don't know if it was necessarily inspired, inspiring, unfortunately, my Jamie, my husband and I all went to college together and it was in 2019. My husband, who's a firefighter was diagnosed with testicular cancer. And after that, we were looking at a lot of the high rates of cancer in the fire service. And we're made aware of some of the toxic chemicals that could have contributed to his cancer. And that's how and through this network of other PFAS advocates that we had started to hear about PFAS, other firefighters wives and a national PFAS coalition. That was kind of how we had started to first hear about it. And Jamie was honestly being like an awesome best friend and I just pulled her right in for help. Yeah, that's, I mean, that's essentially how we got started. But yeah, I saw that Ishia was a diet digging into learning about these chemicals and the fire service. I don't know, maybe as a way to deal with Nate's diagnosis and kind of just like, you know, some people do. And so I was like, cool, let's go on this crazy little journey together. We hopped right in. We actually were able and very lucky that we got a really good diverse group of people to connect with mainly there was a PFAS conference that was held in Boston. And I started to do some Google researchers and found it. And I started to look into all the speakers and every speaker who spoke was incredible. And also we because my husband was in the union and was a firefighter, we were also connected to a whistleblower group and that was very, very helpful because a lot of times it is very hard for someone who's employed to speak up, especially if, you know, at that time, it's very hard when you're saying to your employer, hey, I think these are toxic chemicals that I'm being exposed to at the work in my workplace. So we actually had a whistleblower protection public here, they're known as peer and they were incredible. And really gave us the courage to speak up and a lot of guidance throughout the whole process also. It's really great that you had that kind of resource to assist you in those because it is really scary to bring those things up at work. Yeah. Currently some of our regulations don't protect our workforce. So I'm very thrilled that you had a resource that was able to give you access to the language to navigate those conversations that can be really hard and intimidating. So thank you. Yeah, and I think a lot of this, we were surprised at how much, you know, there's a lot of science, there's a lot of chemistry that we kind of knew going into this, but we, I don't think we were ever prepared for the amount of legal, absolutely. Legal work that, yeah, that, that whole world was very new to us and we didn't know how important that is an understanding of our legal systems and understanding of our laws. That was really eye opening. Yeah. And also understanding how government works, right? Like, who is protecting us, who's not protecting us? What government agencies are in charge of what, you know, it was a huge learning curve on our end. I think that we were both kind of blissfully living our lives without knowing the ins and outs of how things really work. And so this, this journey and this process has really opened my eyes into what we need to pay attention to and how we can affect change and when we can affect change. So it's been an incredible learning process. But to your point though, it has been eye opening for me too as a student, just like how the policy piece of all of it, as well as the how things are funded in the government as well, because these regulating bodies don't get a lot of funding, which is why things move a little bit slowly. Yeah. And also just, you know, when we were doing our initial research, right, we would read studies. We'd be like, oh, you know, this isn't too bad. But then we like learned that you have to really look at who's writing the paper, dig into who they're funded by, and make sure that they don't have kind of other motives, pushing forward, you know, potentially biased science and research. And so that was also eye opening, just to make sure that, you know, when you are looking for references or resources that they are truly unbiased, because there's so much noise out there to sift through. So, you know, for a lot of things, we discovered that, you know, you could just create research, fund your own research, and have the outcome be kind of what you want it to be to support your narrative. So that was also incredibly eye opening. It's just like a lot of, oh, you have to like research the research. And also like understanding, I think there was so much in the scientific world that like we just didn't understand, you know, like what are the detection limits? What are the testing capabilities? What are those limitations when they say that, you know, a chemical is not present? What are, you know, what are the actual limits that you're testing within? Because that can also be kind of misconstrued, right? We're looking at some products that were marketed towards women for menstruation. And they're like, oh, these don't have PFAS in them. You know, their PFAS free, but then when we dug into the actual tech specs, I was like, well, they're measuring to like such high numbers, right? That, that yeah, of course, like anything can be non-detective. That's like your, your highest number that you're looking for. So that was also disheartening. I agree. I think it's also important, like especially in the occupational force, to think about like what protective equipment they're using to protect firefighters and those in the field. But then also it's like what material are those items made out of? And you know, how do those impact exposure as well? Yeah. Yeah. Right. But it was, it was interesting when we got into like the whole conversation of the gear and like getting PFAS out of the gear, right? That was the biggest pushback that we received from firefighters is that they were told that these chemicals are going to keep them safe and a fire that if they didn't have them, they would get steam burns that they would be exposed in a different way that their gear would get incredibly heavy, which would then cause like cardiac issues. And what we saw over the course of time is that when when I was lucky enough to partner with the Toxic Seuced Reduction Institute out of UMass Lowell. to do a study or to help facilitate an exposure study with firefighters on an in-tucket, high NS, and in Fall River, that as soon as we kind of announced that we were doing this work, that manufacturers who had otherwise said that this was like an impossibility started to come out of the woodworks and being like, we're working on PFAS free here. - It was three weeks from the end of the day, three weeks from when there was discussion that there was an exposure study having to an announcement which is incredibly fast. And I don't, it leads us to believe that there was possibly work being done looking into this, but the second somebody saw an opportunity to make money and saw that the writing was on the wall, but I can't help but believe that that kind of demand and purchase power allowed something like that to happen. - Yeah. And it also just showed that like those claims weren't necessarily rooted in truth, right? It was kind of like a delay tactic to keep these chemicals in the gear for as long as possible because it's profitable. And what we also saw was on the committees that were determining whether or not to remove PFAS from the gear at the NFPA, they were riddled with industry people. And I understand that that's how those committees are supposed to be structured. It's supposed to be end user, like a combination of end user industry and then what's the third research, right? - I'm scientists. - Yes, yeah. It was like an end user. And then I think there was like a consultant and user kind of like mix. And I think what you would see a lot of times were perhaps someone, and this is something kind of like that's in the fire services. A lot of times a firefighter will also sell gear as like a second job. So you start to see this merging where, or the person is retiring from the fire department it's hired by the manufacturing company by one of the gear manufacturers. So there is this a lot of like, I don't wanna call it like, yeah, like a lot of crossover and a lot of close relationships where here is this NFPA and it is, I don't wanna say corporate capture, but it felt that way. It felt like there was a lot of, a lot of closeness to these manufacturing companies and chemical companies within the fire service. And they did sponsor and donate a lot of money. So the firefighters were very close to them and trusted them. And you trust your other firefighter. And if he's saying this gear is safe, you believe them. So it was very hard for these firefighters who are by nature, very trust trusting people to not to say, wait a second, you possibly could have led me wrong. How is that my reality? - Could you expand on some of the, what's being done in like textiles for firefighters? Like what is this replacement? Could you inform us a little bit more about that? - Well, so that's really, I mean, and I think that that is another eye opening thing is a lot of times, I mean, these, they'll say it is approved by, Jamie, what was that? Like they'll say it's gone through all these procedures, all these standards and O-Tech, is it O-Tech? - Oh, like O-A-T-O-T-X or whatever. - Yeah, like they were approved by all of these standards and they passed this standard, they passed that standard. So you just naturally, you just naturally believe that it's safe. And I think that that is also something that was naive, but that's just something that a lot of us believe is, if I can buy it, if it's available for purchase, it's safe because it's gone through all the rules and regulations. And I don't think we really realized that, that may not always be the case, especially with like unregulated chemicals. - And generally not the case is what we found, right? Like things are put on the shelves and are available for purchase. Without having gone through particularly stringent testing, I think that's why we're seeing across the board in society such high rates of illness and disease and cancer and a contraception, fertility issues. I mean, the list goes on and on. I don't think that it's a coincidence. But to answer your question in terms of like a substitution, right or an alternative, a safer alternative, I think that that is, I mean, we're obviously not scientists, we're not coming up with substitutions. And I think that we're gonna have to see what comes out on the market and test. But like I think initially it was, what was it? Is she was polyethylene? - Well, there was, so there was, I mean, I think at one point it was like, when we initially asked for the response we got was, well, you can't take these out, they're essential. Then it was told that the NFPA guideline requires that the material, it wasn't necessarily saying that this chemical must stay and it was saying that it needs to withstand 40 hours of UV light degradation and they were talking about the moisture barrier. They had said, okay, we can replace the outer layer. But you know, quite honestly, we weren't aware of what they were replacing it with until a gear set came out. And then when it came out that was like, okay, let's send it now to researchers to look into it because I think a lot of this doesn't fall under consumer protection, they have to like, they don't have to disclose everything that goes into it. So that's really a question for the researchers. We don't know what they were replacing or substituting it with. But I do know that when we were asking for the moisture barrier, that was one that they had said, they didn't hold on and say that this chemical must be used. It was more of, it has to withstand this 40 hours of UV light protection and only the PFAS chemicals could do that, only tough harm. - Which didn't actually make sense to us because a moisture barrier, the way that a set of turn out gear is created is that there's like an outer shell, the moisture barrier and then the thermal liner, which is against, you know, like the inner most liner. And so to say that a moisture barrier that does not ever see UV light needed to withstand 40 hours of UV light, didn't UV make sense? - Yes. - And it didn't have to do it in the gloves or in the other part, it was just a jacket. The other parts of the gear didn't have to withstand that. - Which then quite honestly let us down a different rapid hole of finding this paper that this test was based on, which was like a grad student paper from like many years ago that was funded by Lion Gear, which is a gear manufacturer. And it was not particularly well done in terms of like the research, but everything was the results were inconclusive and it just seemed like they were really holding on to this idea that this UV light test was like the end all be all for a part of the turn out gear that they would not release into a PFAS free option. So at that juncture, I think this was what, 2021 maybe? There was a PFAS free outer shell available and a PFAS free thermal liner available. And so we were working towards getting that last bit of the turn out gear, the moisture barrier to be PFAS free. And now after many years, that option is available to firefighters. The standard has changed, which is amazing. We worked with a lot of different people, firefighters, researchers, lawyers to work on, it was truly like a collective effort across the board, but we really worked to get that moisture barrier to be PFAS free. So that firefighters had an option at the very least to purchase fully PFAS free gear. But I think, I should mention that we sent, the Nantucket Fire Department was lucky enough to be able to order turn out gear with the PFAS free outer shell and thermal liners when they were available. And so we did send some of that to a researcher who tested it and it came back and it was. PFAS free. And so that kind of gave us a little bit of a assurance. That's really great. So as far as the PFAS free gear goes, are there other communities nearby that are utilizing this gear? Or can you tell us how broad that network is for using PFAS free gear? So the PFAS free is just now available. That was like a lower PFAS because the moisture, the one that we have still had the PFAS in the moisture barrier. But I will say that what we noticed shortly after was that there was a new union president for the firefighters. And that union president really listened to the PFAS conversation, was really involved in cancer, firefighters in cancer. So he really made it comfortable. I think for a lot of the other departments to talk about this and wanted to look into it. And then the union itself is now in a lawsuit with NFPA. So they not only were they involved, I mean, I think the union at that point saw the momentum behind this and also took it head on, which that I think was when it got broader. Once the union supported this and looked into it, it was in my opinion, a lot more comfortable for firefighters to ask questions and speak up and request it. And so since then a lot more departments, you know, that have the funding were able to buy a new set of gear. Now a set of gear is about $3,000. It's these last 10 years. And it would be ideal if each firefighter had two sets of gear. So it can be quite expensive. Nant, I get fire department was the first in the nation to get the lower PFAS for your gear, but we also had 25 firefighters. So that is much easier to do than like, you know, if you were a New York fire department in the city that has hundreds of firefighters. So I do know that they're moving towards it, but it is quite a big financial investment to make. And then, you know, if your fire department has just purchase gear, they may not have the funding to do it because it does last 10 years. So they may be wearing the gear with PFAS for another couple of years till it expires. And it is really nice to see at this smaller scale too, the efficaciousness of it, you know, seeing how this is possible that it works. Like that's going to just make it flood the country, I feel like, over time, because if it's successful in a small community, then hopefully that'll become more widely available for other communities to utilize. And now, absolutely. And I think that's something Jamie and I, you know, Jamie's in LA. And so the whole time we would try to mirror or do what we're doing in one place. Let's do that over there. And what we found was sometimes it's much easier to work on a smaller scale. Show that example and then branch out from there and say, hey, look, we were able to do it here. We can do it somewhere else. And so we've been kind of doing that model where sometimes it's easier to do it on a small scale. And in a small town where everyone knows each other and it's much easier to get things done. And I think we've been very lucky to have that and to have the community support to be bold and brave to make a lot of those requests. And another thing is our local press has been phenomenal and incredible. And they've been on this issue asking, speaking to, you know, advocates, researchers, they've been doing some really great investigative journalism and really looking into it as well as a lot of other researchers and their local papers. I can't say enough about how how incredible local journalists have been in these situations because they've been watching the situation and that that attention gets that information out. And I think what I see is when people have that information, correct information, that knowledge, then they can make better choices and more informed choices. And a lot of times we just don't have the information. It's too confusing, it's not accessible to even know what we're asking for a wire, you know, wire dealing with a certain situation. So that was really, really helpful to have that information available to people. So I love that there is that really nice relationship between the unions having this be of utmost importance to dispel any myths that they might hear. And then have that relayed to the community in such a way that they're able to make these changes as employees coming together and saying this is important. And I so I love that. Yeah. And I would say that that was a new thing because prior to this, and I think that you'll see that in a lot of unions, like, you know, there are other unions, there's worker unions, there's the steel worker union, there's, you know, lots of unions that haven't or may not be aware of it or it may not be comfortable yet to talk about it. This development really happened when the union, the International Association of Firefighters president started to speak openly about it. But prior to that, the union was not, they were not, they were very silent about it. And you could hear firefighters starting to speak up because a union's whole purpose is work to protect. You know, the union employees and they were very silent for four decades because they just blindly trusted these chemical companies. So our next question, how should PFAS be regulated on local, state, federal level? I know that there's been a lot of luck coming out recently. And what areas of governance are most needed right now? And do you think we're dealing with this in the right way? Man, no, I don't think, I don't think it's held protective. I think it's backwards. And I think it's going to cost a lot more money to the regular individuals in, you know, financial and physical and their health. And I think there are people who profited companies who profited a lot at the expense of the taxpayer people. I think it's, we're in a system where we feel or have been almost led to believe chemicals are safe until they're proven guilty. And I don't saying that out loud sounds so silly, but I think that is the reality. I don't know when that switch happened where we, where we accepted that we can expose ourselves to something harmful, where chemicals were and not have to prove their safety in such a stringent way. We have to approach this in a global way. Like we can't sit here and say nan-tucket or, you know, this little town in Martha's Vineyard or that town in, you know, Easton is going to solve this. It had, you can use as much as you want of individual individual people to purchase and use your purchase power, but we don't even know what chemicals are in the products. It is so bar-a-gone at this point. It's in all of our bloods. It's in all of our water. It's in our rain water. We need some real drastic, like, federal level help. And the understanding, you know, and it needs to be regulated as class. We can't do this one by one chemical. I mean, it's taken us 40 years, 20 years to do one. And it should be the definition, should be also, you know, accurate and a scientific definition, not one that helps, you know, a company use the product in their products or, you know, it needs to be a scientific, you know, one fully-floor-nated carbon. Not these other definitions that would allow a lot of the chemicals to still be used. Yes, to answer your question, no, I don't feel like we've -- I mean, I don't feel like we've done enough -- to Asia's point, this is the amount of contamination on a global scale is terrifying. It is pretty catastrophic. It is in everything at this point. And so, if we don't globally take measures to just stop producing these chemicals, right, we just need to the -- the saying within the advocacy community is you have to turn off the top, right? Like, we can't just continue to take small thimbles out of a bathtub that's overflowing with water. Like, you have to turn the bathtub off, right? Like, turn the water off. So, if we are going to sit around and kind of, like, twiddle our thumbs and by we, I mean the governments of our global governments and continue to make these exceptions for these chemicals, I quite honestly, like, just don't -- it's just going to continue to be a major issue. And I, again, like I said earlier, you know, it's -- I don't think that it's any [BLANK_AUDIO] coincidence that we have seen such a huge uptick in disease, in cancer, just across the board and infertility. This is because of our horrible chemical policies, right? The lack of true protective chemical policies and not just for human health, but for the environment. Once you find PFAS and polar bears in the Arctic and in rainwater samples from around the world, like the cats out of the back, you know, like we have to figure out, like turn it off, stop producing them. And really figure out, you know, remediation, start to figure out, like, like real remediation, you know, and not just, oh, we're just going to throw a filter on it and then throw those filters into a landfill that then will just just leech out again. You know, it's like, we need to have real solutions here. And quite frankly, I just, I mean, I know that this is already in the works, but these chemical companies should really be held accountable in a major way. Like, these are crimes against humanity. This is like a real issue and I, I feel like we're constantly quite honestly gaslit into thinking that, you know, I don't know, we have genetic issues or it's like something else, but it's like, no, you know, it's, these chemicals are, and not just PFAS, right? Just like across the board, our lacks chemical policies are really doing a lot of harm. The cleanup right now and the remediation is being put on to taxpayers, right, to like fund giant filtration systems for water. Meanwhile, you know, the companies that create these chemicals and continue to get them passed through new chemical testing, the EPA, they just, they get to keep, keep making money, keep creating these toxins. And we just keep having to clean them up. So yeah, I don't think that, I think the luck could be done. And you know, I don't think that it can solely rust on the shoulders of community advocates, although I, you know, we have made a difference, which is, which is nice to know that you can. Yeah, I mean, I think just the awareness is really impactful and powerful. So the fact that you're using your network to disseminate information for not just the firefighting community, but your local communities that, that knowledge is so powerful. Yeah, absolutely. I think there's a couple of interesting things that keep coming up and, you know, as we think about this as I think, you actually, when you get a lot of really upset people who've been wronged, that's what it takes. Like, I, I think you're going to start to see when you have people who have been exposed and have been finding out that their work environment or their water has an examiner or that they drink this when they were pregnant with their babies. I mean, that, you do that to enough people on a night scale and that's what's happening now. And I think the other message I would say is when people are able to unite in across different communities, across different areas, it, this doesn't have to be reinventing the wheel. It's kind of mind blowing how similar it is to a lot of other issues and we can learn from a lot of that, you know, and a lot of think that comes to mind that Jamie and I were seeing with, you know, the tobacco playbook, the big oil, big tobacco, big chemical. These are playbooks and things that have been going on for a long time and it sounds like we're dealing with something new when you start to realize, oh my goodness, maybe this is the way the rules are and maybe this is the regulation and how do you get that to change? Otherwise, we're going to be doing this thing over and over and that kind of sounds like madness and I hope that my message to people out there would be, you do not have to be a scientist, just anyone can, everyone's skill set is so helpful. It does not have to be in a particular thing. Actually, the more of a variety that you have, the more you can contribute, you know, it's pretty incredible when people do get together for a common message. How powerful that is. Yeah, I mean, certainly Aisha and I are not scientists by any stretch of the imagination, but we both bring a different skill set to the table that has helped in ways that, like, I don't even think that we would really understood when we got involved. Like Aisha is just like a natural connector. She loves to talk to people and connect people, which is super helpful in this arena. I have marketing skills and so it's like, you know, trying to make this kind of complex information, more digestible for regular people is something that I can contribute, but everybody can get involved, which is great. Anybody, you know, you just put whatever skills that you have to work and helpful. Yeah, I mean, it could be something as simple as like, you're, you know, like I'm going to a baseball game and in there, I say, oh my gosh, have you seen this documentary or have you read this book or, oh, let's go to just every little thing does help. And I don't think I realize that. You kind of get beat down and you think your voice doesn't matter and you think you can't make a difference. And I think you can, you just have to find a little community or that you can work with. So it's not just you doing it, you know, you can, you, there are people out there. And that's, that's pretty amazing in this whole process to see that and find that. Damien, I have just been very lucky to be able to find, you know, great researchers, lawyers, advocates. And we've learned so much from what's happening in one another's town. I wish we could do more of that. And I think that's what I would encourage is connecting and seeing, well, how did you guys handle this in your town? Or when did you find out about it? What do you guys think about that? That information sharing is so powerful and helpful. Thank you so much to Icha Khan and Jamie Hancock for joining us and for the contributions to this episode. And thank you all for listening. In our final episode of the Peep House Chronicles, we will be chatting with Kristen Mellow and Chris Clark from RAF, Vice Field Residents advocating for themselves. We will chat about community advocacy, frustrations and how research, policy and technology can provide help in our fight against Peep House. See you there. This podcast serves as a companion to the textbook Environmental Health, Foundations for Public Health. Most episodes were written by Anchal Mall and Natalie Conti with support from Natalie Samson, Lindsay Talon and Natasha Dijarnet. Production support has been provided by Justin Shell and Erica Irvin at the Shapiro Design Lab at the University of Michigan. Editing support has been provided by Springer Publishing. The Peep House Chronicles podcast series has been brought to you by Springer Publishing Company LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this podcast series may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission of Springer Publishing Company LLC.