Why research into ‘forever chemicals’ includes firefighters

Summary

Podcast Summary: Why Research Into ‘Forever Chemicals’ Includes Firefighters

Podcast: Short Wave – NPR
Episode Date: February 2, 2026
Host: Regina Barber
Guest: Melissa Furlong, Assistant Professor of Environmental Health Sciences, University of Arizona
Episode Duration: ~13 minutes
Main Theme:
This episode explores the science and health implications of PFAS—so-called "forever chemicals"—with a focus on why research is zeroing in on firefighters, who face some of the highest exposures. The conversation explores how these chemicals have become prevalent, how they're getting into firefighters' bodies, and practical advice for the general public.

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Main Discussion Points

What Are PFAS and Why Are They a Concern?

• Definition & Ubiquity
  • PFAS stands for "per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances," a family of over 10,000 chemicals valued for their ability to repel oil, water, stains, and heat. (00:42)
  • These chemicals have been in widespread use since the 1940s in products like nonstick pans, waterproof fabrics, carpets, and even cosmetics.
  • Notable Quote:

    "Almost everybody has detectable levels of at least one or two of the different common PFAS species. My exposure is fairly constant. It’s everywhere. And it also appears to be pretty toxic."
    — Melissa Furlong (02:12)

• Bioaccumulation ('Forever Chemicals')
  • PFAS don't break down easily in the environment or human body, earning them the nickname "forever chemicals."

    "Instead of being excreted like normal environmental toxicants would be, they just get recirculated."
    — Melissa Furlong (01:57)

• Health Concerns
  • The full health effects are still being researched, but concern is growing due to their persistence and toxicity. Research is ongoing, especially regarding occupational exposure.

Why Focus on Firefighters?

• Occupational Exposure Pathways (04:01–05:38)
  • Firefighter gear is intentionally treated with PFAS for protection against heat, oil, and water.
  • Firefighting foams historically contained high PFAS concentrations. Though less used today, past exposures remain a concern.
  • Notable Quote:

    "So the gear that's supposed to be protecting them, is it actually increasing their PFAS?... The only occupational one where we're pretty sure is a source are the foams."
    — Melissa Furlong (04:30)

• Research Approach
  • Large cohort studies are underway in collaboration with firefighter organizations to track exposure and possible health effects.
  • Data collection relies on self-reported surveys, blood testing for PFAS, and departmental input due to the challenges of tracking thousands of firefighters in the field (05:46–06:38).

Key Study Findings & Comparison with International Research

• Australian Blood/Plasma Donation Study (06:39–08:11)
  • Prior Australian research found firefighters donating plasma or blood had lower PFAS levels.
  • U.S. studies are now tracking this, and preliminary baseline data shows similar trends: plasma donors have notably lower PFAS levels, followed by blood donors, compared to non-donors.
  • Notable Quote:

    "We wanted to ask them at baseline if they had a history of plasma and blood donation... and people who donated blood also had lower levels, not as low as the plasma people, but still slightly lower levels."
    — Melissa Furlong (07:16)

• Ongoing work aims to confirm whether donation directly reduces PFAS levels and improves health outcomes.

Implications and Recommendations for Firefighters

• Best Practices (08:11–09:21)
  • Research is helping inform protective policies, such as the "Clean Cab Initiative," which encourages on-scene gear decontamination and proper gear handling to reduce take-home exposure.
  • Hope that large organizations will adapt best practices based on accumulating research to minimize firefighter PFAS-related risks.
  • Notable Quote:

    "We're hoping that some of this research can basically help firefighters to protect themselves because we don't want firefighters to get sick. We know that firefighters are at increased risk for cancer and we're trying to turn that around."
    — Melissa Furlong (08:44)

Practical Advice for the General Public

• Should Everyday People Be Concerned? (09:22–11:41)
  • Everyone is exposed, but the focus should be on collective action and regulatory changes rather than excessive personal worry.

    "Individual people can take a few meaningful steps, but some people take it too far and it causes a lot of anxiety... We want policymakers and manufacturers to be worried about the PFAS chemicals."
    — Melissa Furlong (09:31)

• Reducing Exposure at Home
  • Filters (especially reverse osmosis) and bottled water tend to reduce PFAS exposure.
  • Well water users may have higher risk due to unrecognized groundwater contamination—testing and filtration is recommended.
  • Furlong personally uses a reverse osmosis filter even on city water.
  • Notable Quotes:

    "Anybody who's on a well and can afford it and can maintain it should get a filter."
    — Melissa Furlong (10:53)
    "There’s a lot of chemicals that are flying around and swimming around out there that are not regulated and not tested for."
    — Melissa Furlong (11:25)

• Mental Health Angle
  • Excessive anxiety about chemical exposure can also be detrimental to health—balance is key.

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Notable Quotes & Moments with Timestamps

• PFAS are everywhere and toxic:

  "Almost everybody has detectable levels… My exposure is fairly constant. It's everywhere." (02:12)

• Firefighting gear and foam exposure:

  "The gear that's supposed to be protecting them, is it actually increasing their PFAS?" (04:30)

• Blood and plasma donation findings:

  "People who donated blood also had lower levels, not as low as the plasma people, but still slightly lower levels." (07:20)

• Reducing anxiety about exposure:

  "It's the anxiety and the stress that can happen… they're not beneficial. Right." (09:55)

• Filtering water:

  "Anybody who's on a well and can afford it and can maintain it should get a filter." (10:53)
  "Reverse osmosis is one of the more effective methods of water filtration." (11:38)

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Timeline of Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |-----------|---------| | 00:17–02:24 | PFAS definition, uses, and why they're called "forever chemicals" | | 02:24–03:00 | Widespread exposure and introductory health concerns | | 04:01–05:38 | Firefighter occupational exposures explained | | 05:46–07:01 | Study methodology: How PFAS exposure is measured in firefighters | | 07:01–08:11 | Blood/plasma donation as a potential way to lower PFAS levels | | 08:11–09:22 | Practical outcomes for firefighter safety and policy | | 09:22–11:41 | Advice for the general public: realistic steps to reduce PFAS exposure | | 11:41–End | Closing remarks and episode wrap-up |

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Tone & Style

The conversation is science-forward, empathetic, and practical. Melissa Furlong balances clarity on the risks with reassurance—offering steps while cautioning against overreacting. The tone remains upbeat and accessible, using everyday examples and a touch of humor.

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Summary Takeaway:
PFAS are inescapable, persistent chemicals that pose health risks, and firefighters are a key research group due to their heightened exposures. While individuals can take steps—like using water filters—systemic action and better regulations are crucial to address this widespread environmental challenge.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

You'Re listening to Shortwave from NPR. 100 years ago, we didn't have nonstick pans, we didn't have Teflon, we didn't have Gore Tex to make clothes waterproof until scientists discovered a special family of chemicals, pfas, chemicals that repelled stains and dirt and water and oil that at first seemed like a miracle.

[C]

So PFAS stands for per and polyfluoro alkyl substances. There are, at last count, over 10,000 different individual types of PFAs. They started to become widespread in industrial use sometime, I think, in the 1940s.

[B]

That's Melissa Furlong. She's an assistant professor of environmental health sciences at the University of Arizona. She's also an environmental epidemiologist. And because PFAS chemicals have all of these useful properties, she says, we put them in a lot of different things.

[C]

Applications that basically need to repel both oil and water. So like if you've got some stain resistant furniture or stain resistant carpet, there's a good chance it was treated with pfas.

[B]

You might find them on your cooking pans, raincoats, some pesticides maybe in your makeup and in you.

[C]

If you are cooking with a nonstick Teflon pan, right, it's not like all of it is sticking to the pan. Some of the PFAS is coming off onto the food and then you're exposed that way. If the PFAS has been applied to your carpet, or if it's been applied to your furniture, then all of that sort of sheds and into your environment.

[B]

And once they get into our bodies, they're hard to get rid of.

[C]

Instead of being excreted like normal environmental toxicants would be, they just get recirculated.

[B]

By the body because these chemicals don't break down easily in the environment or in the human body. PFAS are known as forever chemicals.

[C]

Almost everybody has detectable levels of at least one or two of the different common PFAS species. My exposure is fairly constant. It's everywhere. And it also appears to be pretty toxic.

[B]

The body of research on PFAS is still growing. We don't totally understand all the effects these chemicals might have on our health. So one place Melissa and her colleagues are looking for answers is in a group that's historically had some of the highest levels of firefighters. So today on the show, what PFAS levels in firefighters tell us about these forever chemicals and and how the average person can think about limiting their exposure to them. I'm Regina Barber and you're listening to Shorewave, the science podcast from npr.

[A]

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[B]

Been looking into, like, different ways firefighters could have gotten PFAS into their body. Let's start with their occupation. Where are the PFAS coming from on the job?

[C]

Okay, so that's actually a really hard question. We're not 100% sure where the PFAS are coming from, so there are some things that we suspect firefighters might have increased exposure to. So PFAS is intentionally added to firefighter gear because it has oil repelling, water repelling, and heat repelling properties. Right. So it's a very good protection from firefighters as they're entering the fires. However, there's a possibility, and many people have hypothesized, that firefighters might be experiencing increased PFAS exposure directly from their gear. So the gear that's supposed to be protecting them, is it actually increasing their pfas? And then the other source is that PFAS used to be an essential component of a certain type of firefighting foam that was pretty commonly used ever since They've figured out that maybe PFAS isn't that great for you. They've started to phase PFAS out of those foams. They're still in some foams, but they're used a lot less. And we do actually see that firefighters who have a history of using these types of foams have higher levels of PFAs. So we do think that the foams themselves were probably a significant contributor to the pfas. So there are several different potential sources where firefighters could be exposed to, and the only occupational one where we're pretty sure is a source are the foams.

[B]

And in your study, when you're like analyzing how PFAS might be getting into the firefighters, how are you doing that investigation? How are you getting this data?

[C]

Yeah, so it's really hard. Ideally you'd like to be able to follow the firefighters around to all the fires and have a standardized behavioral recorder who records everything, but that's just not possible because there's about 8,000 firefighters in our study. And so we, we rely for the most part on self report. So we have a fairly extensive survey. We ask the firefighters to fill it out when they enroll in the survey, we ask them to fill out an annual update. And then sometimes at high exposure events, we'll come back and get new samples and ask them to fill out more surveys. We also ask department liaisons to fill out surveys about how their stations are structured or whether they provide their firefighters with certain types of access to different hygiene equipment. And then for the pfas, we just measure it in their blood.

[B]

Got it.

[C]

We send it to a lab.

[B]

And we should say that this paper, it follows a similar paper in Australia where they're looking at levels of these chemicals in firefighters blood and they found that firefighters that donated plasma and blood had lower levels of PFAS than ones who didn't. And your study is kind of like a start of that work here in the US So how does this research compare?

[C]

Yeah, so my colleague Jeff Burgess, who is actually the director of the Firefighter Cancer Cohort Study, and I, we put in an application to try to replicate the Australian study, but also extend it to look at health effects. But when we enrolled all the firefighters, we measured their PFAS and we asked them all of these questions. So we wanted to ask them at baseline if they had a history of plasma and blood donation along with all of these other occupational and lifestyle and behavioral characteristics. And so that's what this paper is. It's not the results of the trial, but it's basically a bunch of information that we got at the very beginning while we wait to figure out if plasma donation reduces PFAS and has health benefits. And one of the things that we see from the baseline is that people who reported a history of plasma donation had much lower levels of PFAS than people who did not report a History of plasma donation. People who donated blood also had lower levels, not as low as the plasma people, but still slightly lower levels. And so that is consistent with what the Australian study saw. And we're hoping that that's what we see at the end of the study.

[B]

How do you hope all of this research helps firefighters in the future?

[C]

Yeah, so we're hoping that larger organizations, larger firefighter organizations can take the bo of literature, not just from this paper, but that we generate across all of our studies and that others who do firefighter research can generate to come up with best practices and recommendations. And so there's an initiative called the CleanCab initiative that has already been rolled out across a lot of departments. It's not universally adopted across the United States. We hope it will be. And some of the things they encourage is basically you leave the fire at the scene. So when the fire is over, you do your on scene decontamination, you rinse, you soap on scene, you take your gear off, you put it in a gear bag, you don't ever bring it into the cab. And there are some other components of it. But we're hoping that some of this research can basically help firefighters to protect themselves because we don't want firefighters to get sick. We know that firefighters are at increased risk for cancer and we're trying to turn that around. And we're also hoping that we can learn some things that will help the general population.

[B]

Yeah, I was going to say, like, if I'm not a firefighter, I know many people aren't. Should our listeners be concerned about PFAS levels like in their daily life?

[C]

Yeah, everyone should be concerned about their PFAS levels. Wow. Individual people can take a few meaningful steps, but some people take it too far and it causes a lot of anxiety. And they'll just constantly find new exposures for pfas. Right. Or they'll read a new article about microplastics. And it's the anxiety and the stress that can happen are not. They're not beneficial. Right.

[B]

So, yeah, those are also bad for your health.

[C]

Those are also bad. Yeah, exactly. So mostly we want policymakers and manufacturers to be worried about the PFAS chemicals and they should be concerned about how they're gonna help reduce PFAS exposure. And then on an individual basis, there are a couple of recommendations.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. What are these recommendations?

[C]

Yes. Yes. So we found that water filtration and bottled water were associated with lower PFAs. And then people who were on a well actually tended to have higher levels of PFAS generally, I think a lot of people think that because they're on a well that it's pure water, it's perfect water, right, because it just like comes from the ground. But they don't realize that there's potentially a lot of groundwater contamination that might be happening from the paper mill down the road. And so you can test your water for some sort of common contaminants. You can also install a filter. I do think that anybody who's on a well and can afford it and can maintain it should get a filter. I'm on municipal water and I still use a reverse osmosis water filter because, well, the water in Tucson doesn't taste good. First of all.

[B]

Oh, we're going to get mail now.

[C]

But there's also just there's a lot of chemicals that are flying around and swimming around out there that are not regulated and not tested for. And reverse osmosis is one of the more effective methods of water filtration.

[B]

Melissa, thank you so much for talking to me about pfas. I'm a hypochondriac and you actually made me feel slightly better, so thank you so much.

[C]

You're welcome. It was fun to chat.

[B]

If you liked this episode, follow us on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Also, you might want to check out our episode on the EPA rule on Forever Chemicals and Tap Water or the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. We'll link to those episodes in our show Notes. I'm Regina Barber. Thank you for listening to Shore Wave from npr.

[C]

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[A]

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