Firefighters face hurdles in quest for PFAS-free gear
By
Ariel Wittenberg | 07/13/2021 5:50 PM GMT
Firefighters who want to wear protective gear without toxic chemicals face complicated hurdles. Claudine Hellmuth/E&E News (illustration); Jay Heike/Unsplash (left photo); Tobias Rehbein/Unsplash (right photo); Clean and Healthy New York (text); National Academies Press (chemical compound)
Firefighters want the option to wear protective gear that doesn’t contain toxic chemicals. The only problem? The very garment manufacturers whose gear contains PFAS sit on the standard-setting committee they must convince.
Firefighters have grown increasingly concerned with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in their turnout gear firefighters’ personal protective equipment over the past year because the chemicals are highly toxic and linked to a wide variety of health problems even at very low levels. They include cancer, which is the biggest line-of-duty cause of death withi
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