The International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified the occupational exposure firefighters face as carcinogenic.

When the group last met more than a decade ago, it determined firefighting was only possibly related to increased rates of cancer.

There’s been lots of research on the subject done between then and now, and Jeff Burgess says the panel’s new ruling confirms what many experts had believed all along, and it’s a big deal.

Burgess is a professor in the University of Arizona’s Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, where he mostly does research with firefighters. 

The Show spoke with him, and the conversation started by asking what the new designation means for firefighters who are diagnosed with cancer.

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