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RESULTS OF CANCER QUESTIONNAIRE
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| By Tony Stefani, Board Chairman | ||||
| I would like to thank all of you who responded to our Cancer Questionnaire. The San Francisco Firefighters Cancer Prevention Foundation which we have formed over the last six months will forward the information contained in the questionnaires to our epidemiologist at U.C.S.F. to analyze the data. We had 644 active firefighters respond to the survey. Out of this number, 33 firefighters are currently battling some form of cancer, 567 active firefighters responded that they did not have cancer, 43 firefighters did not answer either way and 1 firefighter has since passed away.
As far as retired firefighters, we had 762 responses. Out of those 762 responses, 499 do not have cancer, 28 did not answer either way, and 235 currently have or have had cancer. Out of the 235 retired firefighters that were positive, 24 have passed away. The average age of diagnosis was 45.25 years of age. These numbers are very frightening. Tom O’Connor, the President of the Board of Directors for the Foundation, has requested the Fire Commission Secretary to provide a list of deceased members for the last 20 years. All of these numbers are very important for our study. Our non-profit Foundation is now registered with the State of California. The goal of the Foundation is to identify cancer clusters in our Department, develop testing for early detection and research methods that will prevent future cancers for firefighters. We have formed a partnership with U.C.S.F. and are very fortunate to have such an outstanding institution that will be assisting us. |
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