In their daily job of protecting lives, firefighters are exposed to a lot of hazards — not just smoke and fire, but unsafe traffic, violence and vicious cats in trees. However, one of the most perilous risks in firefighting can be somewhat invisible: so-called “forever chemicals,” the substances that are used to suppress fires, such as in fire extinguishers and foams dumped on wildfires. … The parameters of the study, which was published in the journal JAMA Open in 2022, were straightforward: The firefighters were divided into three groups so that the amount of PFAS in their blood could be measured over the course of 12 months. During the 12 months of the experiment, one group of firefighters donated plasma every six weeks; a second group donated whole blood every 12 weeks; and the final group did not donate blood at all.

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