Fire isn\u2019t the greatest danger of the firefighter\u2019s job. Far more succumb each year to diseases linked to hazardous materials exposure than to the flames of a burning building.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a lot of nasty stuff,\u201d said Frank Kimble, one of about 40 firefighters who signed up for a cancer prescreening test offered this week by Upper Macungie Township Fire and Rescue.<\/p>\n
What kind of stuff? Benzene. Lead. Asbestos. Hydrogen cyanide. Carbon monoxide. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, a group of chemicals that can penetrate protective gear and be absorbed through the skin.<\/p>\n
All are byproducts of combustion, especially from the synthetic materials used in modern structures. Such chemicals in the smoke and rubble of the World Trade Center after 9\/11 are blamed for causing more deaths than the attacks themselves.<\/p>\n
According to the International Association of Fire Fighters, which represents 365,000 firefighters in the U.S. and Canada, nearly 80% of line-of-duty deaths among members in 2025 were caused by exposure.<\/p>\n
\u201cFires burn faster, hotter and have deadlier smoke than ever,\u201d said Doug Gernerd, the Upper Macungie department\u2019s health and safety officer and organizer of the Wednesday afternoon event at the Fogelsville Volunteer Fire Company.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s more today than it was years ago,\u201d he added, listing lithium-ion batteries among the recent technological advances posing a threat to first responders. Some exposure-linked diseases, such as asbestos-related mesothelioma, a lung disease, can take years to develop. Cancers can develop and spread more quickly, so early detection is essential.<\/p>\n
At Wednesday\u2019s event, firefighters submitted four vials of blood for testing with Cancerguard, a process that identifies genetic markers of tumor growth.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt won\u2019t necessarily detect what kind of cancer it is, but it may detect something,\u201d Gernerd said.<\/p>\n
Firefighters with positive results are referred to physicians for more testing.<\/p>\n
Over the years, \u201cwe\u2019ve had multiple people here who\u2019ve had cancer,\u201d said Cody Gross, a 13-year volunteer. Though the cases can\u2019t be conclusively linked to fire service, most firefighters suspect they are.<\/p>\n
Cancerguard was developed by Exact Sciences, the company behind the widely advertised Cologuard colon cancer test. Informally known as a \u201cliquid biopsy,\u201d it can detect signs of more than 50 kinds of cancer, the company claims.<\/p>\n
Cancerguard isn\u2019t FDA-approved and the medical community is divided on its merits. It can result in false negatives and false positives and isn\u2019t as effective as traditional screening, though the company notes that physicians routinely screen for only a handful of cancers.<\/p>\n
It also costs nearly $700 and isn\u2019t covered by insurance. Gernerd said the fire company\u2019s screening was covered by the department\u2019s Firefighter\u2019s Relief Fund.<\/p>\n
The precaution is worth the cost, he said. The department does all it can to ensure safety \u2014 firefighters are decontaminated after incidents involving exposure, and equipment is thoroughly cleaned \u2014 but no measure is foolproof.<\/p>\n
The department has about 60 members. Gernerd said he was pleased so many signed up for testing but understood why others didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were some people who just didn\u2019t want to know,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Daniel Patrick Sheehan is a freelance writer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fire isn\u2019t the greatest danger of the firefighter\u2019s job. Far more succumb each year to diseases linked to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293068,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,1057,182,139,432],"class_list":["post-293067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-health","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-top-stories-tmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293067","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=293067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}