[CPEO-MEF] PFAS: "Pioneering Study Links Testicular Cancer Among Military Personnel to ‘Forever Chemicals’"

[Lenny Siegel <LSiegel@cpeo.org>]

[This story also ran on USA Today. It can be republished for free.]

Pioneering Study Links Testicular Cancer Among Military Personnel to ‘Forever Chemicals’

By Hannah Norman and Patricia Kime
KFF Health News
AUGUST 9, 2023

Gary Flook served in the Air Force for 37 years, as a firefighter at the now-closed Chanute Air Force Base in Illinois and the former Grissom Air Force Base in Indiana, where he regularly trained with aqueous film forming foam, or AFFF — a frothy white fire retardant that is highly effective but now known to be toxic.

Flook volunteered at his local fire department, where he also used the foam, unaware of the health risks it posed. In 2000, at age 45, he received devastating news: He had testicular cancer, which would require an orchiectomy followed by chemotherapy.

Hundreds of lawsuits, including one by Flook, have been filed against companies that make firefighting products and the chemicals used in them.

And multiple studies show that firefighters, both military and civilian, have been diagnosed with testicular cancer at higher rates than people in most other occupations, often pointing to the presence of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, in the foam.

…

For the entire article, see
https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/pioneering-study-links-testicular-cancer-among-military-personnel-to-forever-chemicals/

For the study, go to
https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/epdf/10.1289/EHP12603

—

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
A project of the Pacific Studies Center
LSiegel@cpeo.org
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650-961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org
Author: DISTURBING THE WAR: The Inside Story of the Movement to Get Stanford University out of Southeast Asia - 1965–1975 (See http://a3mreunion.org)

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