Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Firefighters with cancer get more support

Ron Morden holds a photograph from his days battling fires. Morden recently survived another battle, with esophageal cancer.

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Ron Morden holds a photograph from his days battling fires. Morden recently survived another battle, with esophageal cancer. ( MICHAEL CHRISTIANSON / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS)

  The Manitoba government will expand coverage for work-related illnesses affecting firefighters, Labour and Immigration Minister Nancy Allan said Wednesday.



Allan, minister responsible for the Workers Compensation Act, introduced amendments to add two new cancers linked to firefighting. The cancers are esophageal and primary site testicular cancer.



Eight primary site cancers have been listed since the legislation was brought in 2002: brain, bladder, kidney, lung, ureter and colorectal cancers, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and leukemia.



Firefighters are two to three times more likely to develop certain cancers due to exposure to toxic smoke and carcinogens when battling fires, United Firefighters of Winnipeg president Alex Forrest said.




Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition April 15, 2009 A3

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