Cancer cluster among firefighters

The Firegeezer blog, which always has excellent information about the broad topic of firefighting, had a recent post about a cancer cluster in Queensland, Australia. In part:

" [...] Firefighters assigned to the station have a 62% higher rate of brain cancer than the rest of the state."

Coincidentally, two days ago there was a news story containing preliminary research findings that linked brain cancer with polluted air, and specifically diesel exhaust. Firefighters have a hard time avoiding both.

Here is an excerpt of the story:

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.

Hundreds of studies have linked air pollution to early deaths, heart attacks, reduced lung function, lung cancer and various other health problems. Ljubimova is among a handful of scientists who are focused on finding out what air pollution does to people's brains.

Photos by Bill Gabbert