Both Houses Approve Presumption Bill

Monday, June 24, 2019 | 0

A long-sought cancer presumption for New Jersey firefighters moved one step closer to reality this week after both houses of the New Jersey Legislature approved it and sent it to the governor.

Assemblywoman
Annette Quijano

On Thursday, the Assembly voted 73-5 in favor of S716, a bill that has been introduced most years since 2006 and was vetoed by a previous governor. Later on Thursday, the Senate voted 37-0 for the bill. The Senate version was substituted for the identical Assembly bill, A 1741.

“These workers are our first line of defense,” Assemblywoman Annette Quijano, D-Union, said in a local news report. “Their jobs are not only stressful, they are dangerous. This bill ensures that public safety workers are adequately covered if they suffer a debilitating illness or worse related to their duties at work.”

Known as the Thomas P. Canzanella Twenty First Century First Responders Protection Act, the bill does not list specific cancers, as many recent state laws have done, but defines “known carcinogen” as “a substance which is known or generally accepted by the scientific community to cause cancer in humans, as identified by the state Department of Health or by the International Agency for Research on Cancer.”

The IARC study has led to friction in some states that rely on it, including Texas, because it names only three cancers that have shown a higher prevalence among firefighters: prostate, testicular and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Texas cities in recent years denied a number of firefighter claims that were not one of those three malignancies.

After protests from first responders, Texas lawmakers expanded the list to 11 types of cancers.

The New Jersey action also provides compensation for public safety workers afflicted by communicable diseases, biological toxins and vaccines received as part of employment. An Assembly committee last week inserted language about the vaccine claims, noting that the presumption “may be rebutted by a preponderance of the evidence showing that the administration of the vaccine is not linked to the injury, illness or death.”

The employer may require the worker to undergo testing, at the expense of the employer, to determine if the illness is linked to the vaccine.