Reader Robyn writes:
Hi Millsy and Dr Chemical,
Firstly, love your show Millsy. I listen every morning on my way to work. Kent is a hoot and has me in stitches.
I heard you this morning and thought I would share my story relating to Fire-fighters and cancer.
My late husband was a fire-fighter in the Royal Australian Air Force for 23 years.
After serving all over Australia, and a stint in the Middle East in 2005, he left the RAAF in May 2006 and we returned to WA.
In July 2006 he was diagnosed with an extremely aggressive form of Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, and after 12 months of chemo and a bone marrow transplant, he passed away on my 41st birthday… the 21st of June 2007.
He was 44.
As soon as he was diagnosed in 2006 we lodged a claim with Veteran’s Affairs, as we believed his cancer was caused by his line of work. After extensive research I discovered that in the USA, Canada and the UK, this form of cancer is recognised as being caused by the fumes and toxins to which fire-fighters are exposed. .
It is twice as prevalent in fire-fighters as in the average person on the street. Hence they are able to lodge a workers’ compensation claim.
But here in Australia, it is not recognised, so his claim was denied.
However, earlier this year Veterans Affairs contacted me and said that some legislation had changed and they now accepted some liability, as his case fell under the “De-seal/Re-seal” legislation as he had worked at RAAF Base Amberley in Brisbane during the required time and been exposed to the contaminated fuel. However, they did not concede that any other part of his role had contributed to his cancer.
The children and I received a lump sum payment (death benefit) which was greatly appreciated.
However, considering it cost him his life, it was a measly amount (approx $300k). I was also required to sign a declaration stating that I would not take any further action against them for further damages.
Hearing your story this morning gives me hope that other fire-fighters, both Defence and Civilian, that may contract cancers relating to their work, will now have more of a chance of these cancer’s being recognised and their families will hopefully be looked after.
Keep up the good work, love the show.
Cheers
Robyn
Wow! For several reasons!
I must confess that this is something I hadn’t thought of. My original comments were about the Fiskville firefighters who has contracted cancer from being exposed to the fumes coming from waste flammable solvents that had been deposited on site for firefighting practice.
But, of course, firefighters in real situations are exposed to similar things, if not worse.
And the danger here is not acute toxicity, but cancer. Cancer, of course, is a modern disease, only being in existence essentially since the industrial revolution.
As far as I am aware, no one knows what causes it, in the sense of what it actually is. But it is known that cancer is the result of being exposed to certain types of radiation and chemicals.
From the point of view of the chemicals, the reason that it difficult to work out what is actually happening is because all the chemicals that contribute to cancer are organic, just like our body. This means that the molecules react with the molecules of our body and are subsumed by them.
For example, benzene, which is one of the more common carcinogens around:
Benzene is a basic six membered carbon ring:
with a shorthand structure that looks like this:
The six membered carbon ring is one of the most basic components of millions of different chemicals in our body. For example, here are the structures of some alkaloids
:
so any benzene that we take into our body can participate in literally millions of unwanted chemical reactions in our body, becoming incorporated into the structures of big molecules and so becoming completely invisible.
That is, if you had been exposed to benzene, it would be utterly impossible to prove it, because the benzene molecule will have disappeared inside the structures of other molecules. The reactions that occur can release all sorts of nasty intermediate compounds of unknown structures, some of which, no doubt, cause cancer.
I’m aware that firefighters wear breathing equipment when they fight fires, but no respirator is going to block out everything, and in any case, I suspect that these are a relatively new phenomenon, and perhaps firefighters of the past were not so well equipped.
I personally find it utterly astonishing that this is not recognised in law. Utterly astonishing. There are chemicals in things in houses that were never meant to be burned. Never mind benzene – the high temperature of a fire is capable of producing all sorts of nasty free radicals, dioxins and other aromatics that you do not want to be breathing.
In fact similar things happened to firefighters that were involved in 9/11. Although there was not a fire when the buildings collapsed their was certainly plenty of dust – dust that had been pulverised into particles so small that they would pass through most air filters.
And apparently this did indeed result in very high cancer rates not only amongst firefighters after 9/11 but people who were in the general vicinity at the time.
And this really is not rocket science. Chemists who work with organics have higher rates of cancer then chemists who don’t. And this is common knowledge – one of the highest rates of cancer in the industry is fragrant chemists, as they are forever breathing in fumes of large complex organic molecules.
Hopefully this tragic legacy will change soon – I can only assume that firefighters these days are better equipped.
But it is for those like Robin who must endure the tragic legacy of ignorance of chemical toxicity – not unique to firefighters I might add – that I hope the law changes soon – if anyone ever wanted to put me in the witness box, I’d be happy to explain a few things to them…