Aprox. 5 years ago Pa. passed the Firefighters Cancer Presumption Act
With an ever rising amount of firefighters Career and volunteer like myself getting cancer the law was suppose to help those of us with fire related cancer to get compensation with out having all the burden of proving firefighting caused our cancer. None of us was looking for Million Dollar pay offs we where looking for compensation to take care of our wives and family's should we not survive cancer I was fortunate I did
THE TRUTH
Not one firefighter including my self out of the 100 plus firefighters I personally know who got cancer have gotten any help from the law in fact no firefighter in Western Pa has gotten help have not been able to find any one helped by this law it is a total and complete sham and scam this law why was the effort ever put into it in the first place if it throws up more road blocks than helps and Ohio just passed one and same thing is going to happen.
The Problem
Is the Oncologists who treat us not one is willing to sign off saying we got our cancer from Firefighting even thou there are many compelling arguments that inhaling diesel and other toxic fumes and wearing of radios is causing problems . They all blame our cancer on family history even if that history is very spotty and inconclusive
No one wants to do studies on the correlation of Firefighters carrying radios on their hips and Colorectal cancer being caused by those radio and pager signal waves
Until Oncologists are willing to sign off not one firefighter will get help. Which was supose to be the whole point of the bill in the first place automatic presumption.
So as my friends are slowly dying off who will help take care of their familys.?
Thats right in many cases no one if your a volunteer chances are your lucky you even have a life insurance policy most volunteers are blue collar and many are not making any kind of real money
yes some do but thats the exception not the rule and even if you do survive like me you often end up filing bankruptcy because of all the time you had to take off from work. Some who survive can go back to what they love most like me can not go back into firefighting.
So all the hand shaking and back slapping and ballyhoo about passing this law and not one person helped. why was it even passed.
One of the Cheifs I know who passed from Colon cancer just like I had and we went thru treatment at same time ,said it right why bother attemting to get help its going to be too little too late .
