HEALTH & SAFETY REPORT
Firefighter Presumption Laws:
Why They Matter
When you’re fighting a structure fire, or wading through a hazmat incident or treating a gunshot victim, chances are you’re too busy getting the job done to think about the risk to your health and safety.
Just because you’re not thinking about it doesn’t mean the risk isn’t there. As firefighters, your day-to-day duties are, at time, awash in elements that can cause slow-motion death.
Cancer: Over the past three decades, dozens — perhaps hundreds — of research studies, papers and media investigations have documented the direct link between being a firefighter and getting cancer. According to the IAFF, nearly two-thirds of all line-of-duty firefighter deaths are from job-related cancer. Compilation studies have linked the job to heightened risk of brain, lung, skin, pancreatic, testicular cancers, non-Hodgkins lymphoma … the list goes on. These and many other cancers are, in turn, linked to the kinds of chemicals you will be exposed to at nearly every structure fire. Even the diesel exhaust in the fire station is a cancer risk.
Infectious pathogens: If you’ve been on a call — or even just awake — in the last year and a half, you know that you are at direct risk of COVID infection. Firefighters in San Jose were the first people in the nation to be confirmed as exposed to COVID, and beyond the deaths, the incidence of “long-termers” in the fire service are rising. COVID is not the only airborne infection: Meningitis, SARS, MRSA, tuberculosis are all risk factors. There are also blood-borne pathogens — Hepatitis and HIV — in the mix.
Post-traumatic stress: Over the past decade, post-traumatic stress injury (PTSI) in the fire service has moved from an unspoken issue to a proven killer. Suicide rates among firefighters substantially outstrip those of the rest of society, and other, less extreme results threaten the health and careers of firefighters.
Sources: NIOSH, Firefighter Cancer Support Network, IAFF
For the thousands of firefighters who’ve faced these issues, getting healthy is just the beginning. Fighting for legitimate workers’ compensation benefits is often a stressful, expensive slog. From routine denials of treatment to flat-out stonewalling, employers manipulate workers’ comp to delay and deny essential treatment so that firefighters can get back to the job they love.
One of the most powerful weapons in fighting back are firefighter presumption laws. A presumption law basically says that, for certain illnesses and injuries, the job-related connection is presumed, unless it is disproven by the employer. In essence, it flips the burden of proof in the workers’ comp process: Instead of you having to prove the job caused the illness, your employer has to prove it didn’t.
The first firefighter presumption law dates back to 1939, with the passage of the Heart, Lung and Hernia Presumption. Then only a year old, CPF was one of the leaders of the legislative fight to pass the measure. In 1982, a major milestone was accomplished with the passage of the nation’s first firefighter cancer presumption. Lobbying door-to-door in the state Capitol, CPF President Emeritus Dan Terry and Governmental Advocate Emeritus Brian Hatch made the case.
Since 1982, the heart and cancer presumption laws have been augmented by CPF-backed measures providing protection for blood-borne pathogens, biochemical exposures, meningitis, and tuberculosis. In 2019, CPF won another milestone with the passage of a groundbreaking presumption for post-traumatic stress injury, and in 2020, Gov. Newsom signed legislation for a COVID-19 presumptions.
While they are a powerful protection for your rights on the job, presumption laws are not a guarantee of full protection.
Even after eight decades of history, cities and counties and workers’ comp providers still fight tooth-and-nail to deny you of your legitimate earned benefits. Automatic denials, slow-walking claims, forcing you to company doctors and other tricks are used by employers to keep from having to get you the care you need to get back to the job you love. CPF is currently fighting an ongoing battle in Sacramento to increase the penalties this type of cruel and illegal behavior, and employers and insurers are spending heavily to lobby against it.
Because presumptions are not fool proof, it is essential that every firefighter document his or her exposures on the job through CPF’s Personal Exposure Reporting. PER provides a seamless and intuitive online exposure database that belongs to you … not your employer and not the union. Recent updates have made it possible not only to document toxic and infectious exposure, but also risk factors for post-traumatic stress.
“CPF has been winning the fight for presumption laws,” said CPF President Brian Rice. “But presumptions are no substitute for documenting your exposures. The simple act of reporting your exposures through can make these presumptions nearly bulletproof.”