[CPEO-MEF] PFAS: Indiana takes on firefighting foam

[Lenny Siegel]

An unseen hazard: State to remove toxic firefighting foam, but contamination persists

By Carson Gerber 
Kokomo Tribune (IN)
April 30, 2022 

In the early 1980s, Indianapolis firefighter Tom Hanify was part of a training exercise using foam spray to put out a controlled house fire. After Hanify and the crew contained the blaze, they stuck around just to play in the foam.

He said that at the time, the firefighters were just having fun. Now, looking back, there was nothing funny about it.

That’s because Hanify now realizes that foam contained per-and-polyfluoroalkyl, “forever” chemicals that don’t break down and build up in the human body. Recent research has linked it to at least eight different kinds of cancer.

“We were literally playing with this stuff and had no clue what we were doing,” said Hanify, who today serves as president of the Professional Fire Fighters Union of Indiana.

…

For the entire article, see
https://www.tribstar.com/indiana/news/an-unseen-hazard-state-to-remove-toxic-firefighting-foam-but-contamination-persists/article_8c6803fb-da1a-50d5-933e-34c3a9caabb9.html

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Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
A project of the Pacific Studies Center
LSiegel at 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)