Sherrill Stands with Pascrell to Protect Firefighters

Washington, DC – Tonight, Representative Mikie Sherrill (NJ-11) voted to support firefighters and increase funding for the Firefighter Cancer Registry by an additional $900,000. Representative Bill Pascrell’s (NJ-09) amendment to H.R. 2740, the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Defense, State, Foreign Operations, and Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act, 2020, would increase funding for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and direct that money to the Firefighter Cancer Registry.

“I recently spoke to a September 11th first responder, who told me that he accepted cancer as a fact of life as a firefighter,” said Representative Sherrill. “The brave men and women who put their lives on the line to keep our communities safe deserve support when they get sick, and we need to make all efforts to reduce the incidence of occupational cancer for our firefighters. I’m proud to vote for Representative Pascrell’s amendment to increase funding for the Firefighter Cancer Registry.”

According to the U.S. Fire Administration: “Information in the registry will be used to improve monitoring of cancer incidents among firefighters and to collect and publish information about the occurrences of cancer among this population. Registry data will be available for research for free if the findings of the research are made public.”

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