health & safety firegeezer on 17 Apr 2008 05:34 pm
Fire Station “Cancer Cluster” Investigated
THE ATHERTON FIRE STATION IN QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA, has been the subject of the State Health Department’s investigation of a high incident-rate of cancers.
Firefighters assigned to the station have a 62% higher rate of brain cancer than the rest of the state and they have been studying the facility since December.
So far, they are certain that there is nothing related to the station itself that could be causing the cancers and they will not close it down. But they are continuing to consider the area around the firehouse in search of any possible outside cause. Brad McCulloch from Queensland Health says, “The only known exposure - there’s two known risk factors for brain cancer - one being family history, the other is exposure to ionising radiation. There’s no known sources of ionising radiation at the station but obviously that’s going to be tested more thoroughly.”
In the past 15 years, five Atherton FF’s have contracted cancer, three of them were brain cancer, one colon cancer and one prostate cancer.
They are also recommending further study into the overall incidence of cancer among all Queensland firefighters. Statewide there are 34 active and retired firefighters currently suffering from cancer of some sort.
Queensland Fire Brigade photo
ABC News has the STORY.
The Toowoomba Chronicle has MORE.
Queensland Fire Brigade WEBSITE.
on 18 Apr 2008 at 5:35 pm 1.Bill said …
Recently in the news were some preliminary research findings that linked brain cancer with air pollution, and specifically “diesel soot”. Of course firefighters get their share of polluted air, including diesel exhaust.
Here is a quote dated April 16, 2008 from:
http://www.shns.com/shns/g_index2.cfm?action=detail&pk=POLLUTION-CANCER-04-16-08
“Dr. Julia Ljubimova found something disturbing when she probed the brains of rats exposed to air pollution: The dirty air appeared to trigger changes indicating the earliest stage of brain tumors.
Ljubimova, an oncologist and researcher at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, stressed that she is not ready to say air pollution is a cause of brain cancer.
“I don’t want to scare anyone, because this is preliminary data,” she said. “But we found something very important.”
Her work suggests that fine particles like those found in diesel soot can switch on the tumor genes that many people inherit, jump-starting the disease process that results in brain tumors.”
You have a great blog, by the way!