In first, US eases firefighter claims for female-specific cancers

• List of diseases expanded at end of Biden's term
• Implementation now in the hands of Trump administration
• Changes came in wake of Context

RICHMOND - The U.S. Labour Department has moved to fast-track firefighter workers’ compensation claims involving a handful of cancers specific to women, but the policy may face an uncertain fate as President Donald Trump cuts government jobs and quashes diversity policies.

Trump is rapidly reducing the federal workforce, moving to fire thousands of employees last week from various government agencies, including the U.S. Forest Service.

He also signed an executive order the day he took office ordering the termination of positions, grants, contracts and initiatives that are tied to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), calling them "illegal and immoral discrimination programmes."

That has raised concerns about how the expansion of a list of diseases for which a stricken female firefighter can quickly seek compensation will be implemented.

The policy change, announced in the waning days of the Biden administration, adds breast, cervical, uterine and ovarian cancers, along with basal cell carcinoma, to a list of "high risk" diseases that qualify for an expedited claims process for firefighters, according to the most recent Labour Department bulletin dated Jan. 10.

"This advancement represents a transformative shift toward equity and recognition of women's contributions and the protections they deserve given the risks they take and the exposures they face," Chris Godfrey, former head of the Labour Department's Office of Workers' Compensation Programmes (OWCP), wrote in a blog post outlining the policy change.

Godfrey's post now appears to be unavailable on the department's website.

A website for a special claims unit for firefighters also appears to be down. A Labour Department spokesperson said the site was undergoing scheduled maintenance for an undetermined length of time and that people are still able to continue to file claims.

Asked if the department planned to implement the Jan. 10 change as is to allow women to file expedited claims for firefighting-related illnesses, a spokesperson said the bulletin remains in effect and is available on the Federal Employees' Compensation Act website.

Delays to claim

"Politics are politics, and it may not be a priority of the new administration," Godfrey told Context. "But I think that interested parties and interested members of Congress will probably be pushing the administration on it.

"I obviously think it's good policy, and we set the stage for this administration to do the right thing."

In 2022, the Labour Department established the special claims-handling unit for federal firefighters in the wake of a Context investigation that found ailing firefighters often set up online crowdfunding drives in lieu of going through a painstaking, often fruitless claims process.

Congress subsequently established that certain cancers, like kidney and lung cancers, are "proximately caused" by federal firefighters' jobs in the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act.

Non-federal firefighters had generally enjoyed such benefits under so-called presumption clauses that hold that enough evidence exists of the hazards of the occupation.

But federal firefighters who were injured or fell ill because of the job have historically struggled to prove the causal link for workers' compensation purposes.

Under Godfrey, the OWCP vastly increased the acceptance rate for federal firefighters' claims, which previously could languish for months, if not years.

From around April 2022 to mid-August 2023, the workers' compensation division accepted 94% of adjudicated claims for certain cancers, heart and lung conditions - a far cry from a previous average acceptance rate of about 29%.

The OWCP was receiving roughly 2,600 annual claims from federal firefighters at that time.

The U.S. Forest Service and Department of Interior collectively employed about 17,000 wildland firefighters and other personnel in 2024. Women have historically made up 10% to 15% of the force.

Though the addition of women-specific cancers might not affect a large number of people, "the firefighters that it does impact are greatly impacted by it," Godfrey said.

Poor morale

The changes mark a positive step forward and are a long time coming, said Riva Duncan with the advocacy group Grassroots Wildland Firefighters.

"When they were initially left off, it just felt like ... why do we keep having to prove that we've (also been) doing this job for decades and we also make sacrifices?" she said.

Duncan said she hoped the website outage was temporary but expressed concern the recent "attacks on DEI" raised questions about whether the cancers to which female firefighters are susceptible would remain among the special claims.

"The special claims website is for everybody, but is it going to be redone? Are they going to take women-specific cancers back off because that's diversity? I don't know. There's so much uncertainty," she said.

The changes were made as federal firefighters come off battling the record Los Angeles area blazes amid low pay and a work environment made tougher as climate change fuels hotter, drier conditions that lay the groundwork for more destructive fires.

Federal firefighters are often paid less than their state and local counterparts, even as they assist on the same blazes.

Pay supplements for firefighters first introduced in 2021 that have been extended on a temporary basis may be running out soon. The federal government is faced with the prospect of a shutdown in mid-March if Congress does not agree to interim funding.

Amid a broad federal hiring freeze kickstarted by Trump, Duncan said she has heard of people in the fire profession who have gotten offers rescinded - even as the administration reportedly said seasonal firefighters are exempt from the freeze.

"(It's) one more thing to affect morale of a group of people that are already dealing with poor morale," she said.

The Trump administration has offered federal workers buyouts en masse in its bid to slash spending - a plan given the go-ahead this month by a federal judge in Massachusetts.

"I was surprised when wildland firefighters got this email asking them to resign," Duncan said.

"It just makes me think that the people trying to reduce the size of government don't really understand who's doing the work and how all-encompassing that work is."

(Reporting by David Sherfinski; Editing by Ayla Jean-Yackley.)