ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) -- Cancer cases among former Anne Arundel County firefighters will be investigated to see if there is a link to the burning of toxic transformer oil at the county's fire training academy in the 1970s and 1980s.
State and county health officials have contracted with a Johns Hopkins University epidemiologist to investigate the possible link.
The county's health officer asked for help from state officials two weeks ago after examining the cancer cases for six months.
``Given the limitations of the resources available to us, we will be unable to reach a satisfactory conclusion to this inquiry,'' wrote Katherine P. Farrell, the county's acting health officer, in a June 16 letter to the state. ``We are referring this issue to you for your consideration as the implications of such findings could affect the lives of firefighters and their families, occupational safety regulations, workers' compensation and other issues more appropriately addressed on the state and federal levels.''
State officials then asked Hopkins cancer expert Jonathan M. Samet to investigate. The review was first reported by The Capital in Annapolis.
Some former firefighters believe that the illnesses are connected to the burning of coolants called polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) at the training academy in Millersville. The federal government banned manufacture of PCBs in the late 1970s after finding that they caused cancer in lab animals.
Former academy instructor David Fowler, who now is gravely ill with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, told The (Baltimore) Sun last spring that officials set fires in the basement and asked firefighters to sit upstairs without masks to see how long they could stay inside while inhaling smoke.
``That was the idea, to have you choking,'' Fowler said. ``That was the idea, to eat as much smoke as you could.''
Fowler and other firefighters have said the fuel used to set fire to buildings and a pond was transformer oil donated by Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. A BGE spokeswoman said the company is aware of the issue and looking into it.
A state workers' compensation commission ruled that Fowler's illness was work-related but did not specify a cause.
Kenneth Berman, an attorney representing some firefighters, said he has heard of about a dozen similar cases of cancer in the Anne Arundel Fire Department, which has 629 employees.
``That is off the charts for a pretty small department,'' said Berman, who has worked with firefighters for 23 years.
Samet said he and his research team will spend the next six months reading previous studies on cancer among firefighters, looking into the cases in question and overall cancer trends in Anne Arundel County. The team will then decide whether a more in-depth study, that might include interviews with all surviving county firefighters, is needed.
Samet said he has found links between employment conditions and cancer in the past, but in other cases clusters of cancer cases have been found to be coincidental.
County officials found previous studies showing elevated rates of brain cancer among firefighters but said they could not assemble enough data to establish links between fire department practices and cancer.
A spokeswoman for County Executive Janet S. Owens referred questions to fire and health officials. Anne Arundel fire officials said they will wait for the completion of the study before commenting.
Information from: The Sun
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