ALLENTOWN, Pa. – A silent danger that firefighters face each day is now being addressed in Allentown.<\/p>\n
According to non-profit organization, Firefighter Cancer Support Network, cancer is the most dangerous threat to firefighters’ health and safety.<\/p>\n
“It will help us save the lives of the people who save lives in the city of Allentown everyday,” said Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk.<\/p>\n
In 2025, nearly 80% of International Association of Fire Fighters member line-of-duty deaths were due to occupational cancer, according to the association.<\/p>\n
“The prevalence of these cancers we are better aware of now and we now have tools that can help us detect these cancers early,” Tuerk said.<\/p>\n
Those include a multi-cancer detecting tool that firefighters in Allentown will have access to.<\/p>\n
“It is a blood test that looks for markers that can point to potential cancers,” said Amy Nyberg, President, Ambulatory Services, Jefferson Health.<\/p>\n
Through a partnership with the city, Lehigh Valley Health Network part of Jefferson Health, and Local 302 the technology is now being offered to those who serve on the front lines.<\/p>\n
“Your commitment to advancing healthcare in our community demonstrates leadership, compassion and a forward thinking approach to cancer prevention,” said Chief Efrain Agosto.<\/p>\n
Firefighters say it is one step forward to improve treatment and the odds of survival. It’s an issue that hits close to home.<\/p>\n
“It improves the care we’ll get at a much earlier stage, improves survivability so it’s super important, especially here. We have had some recent loss with former Chief Kiskeravage and Fire Marshall Tomczak. It’s definitely something we are serious about,” said Jeremy Warmkessel, Local 302 IAFF President.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. – A silent danger that firefighters face each day is now being addressed in Allentown. According…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":130773,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[214,232,153,155,154],"class_list":["post-130772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-allentown-area","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}