New research by scientists at Duke University could give public health officials a new tool for tracking firefighters’ exposures to cancer-causing chemicals.
The best part? It’s a silicone wristband, purchased in bulk for about $1 apiece.
“It turns out that ordinary silicone wristbands, like the ones sold in stores, absorb the semi-volatile organic compounds you’re exposed to while you’re out in the world,” said Jessica Levasseur, a Ph.D. student at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment, who led the study.
“It’s like taking fingerprints of everywhere you’ve been and everything you’ve been exposed to,” Levasseur said.
It all started when the Durham, NC, Fire Department approached Duke researchers for help identifying exposure risks its firefighters faced.
“Firefighters have high cancer rates compared to the general population, but we don’t know why,” Levasseur said. “Is it caused by exposure to one chemical or a mix of them? Is it something they breathe in while working in fires or being near them? Or something else? There are lots of risk factors and potential routes of exposure, and we wanted to see if silicone wristbands could be a practical tool for disentangling them.”
Levasseur asked 20 firefighters from the DFD to wear the wristbands while working a typical six-day shift, and then to get each firefighter’s baseline exposures, while off duty.
Each wristband was analyzed for 134 different chemical compounds, including phthalates, brominated flame retardants, organophosphate esters, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), all of which have been linked to increased incidence of certain cancers.
Studies by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health and other agencies show firefighters have a nine percent higher risk of being diagnosed with cancer and a 14 percent higher risk of dying from the disease than the general adult U.S. population.
“Seventy-one of these chemicals — including seven PFAS, which to our knowledge have never previously been detected using wristbands — were found in at least half of the bands,” Levasseur discovered.
Bands worn by firefighters on days they actively fought a fire also contained 2.5 times more PFOS — a type of PFAS — than the bands of firefighters who were not called to a fire. This suggests that exposure to these contaminants is strongly associated with active firefighting, Levasseur said.
“This research is the first to demonstrate that silicone wristbands can be used to quantify occupational exposure in firefighters and distinguish exposures that may be related to fire events versus other sources,” Levasseur said.
The full results of the study can be found here.
