ThOn Feb. 5, the California State Board of Pharmacy (BOP) is expected to pass a set of regulations that would make it virtually impossible for firefighters to access glutathione – a critical breathing treatment – just as many of us need it the most."Glutathione has the potential to be an absolute game-changer for firefighters across the country. It's confusing to me to me that it's so difficult to access this. I hope we can find a solution where glutathione becomes as common as washing a firefighter's turnouts after a fire."- Fire Captain David Marquez, Pasadena Firefighters Local 809; first responder on the Jan. 2025 Eaton Fire; petition author Glutathione is an antioxidant made in the liver and lungs. Environmental medicine doctors who treat firefighters report that just one month of inhalable glutathione treatment can reduce or even eliminate respiratory symptoms associated with long-term occupational exposure to smoke.(Links to glutathione research and preliminary data from the glutathione-centric Firefighter Detox Pilot Program being conducted in Sonoma County can be found here.)Many of us who got sick from working the Eaton and Palisades Fires have had the opportunity to nebulize glutathione with environmental doctors who deployed to our base camps and fire stations. Firefighters nebulize glutathione at the Rose Bowl; Eaton Fire 2025The treatment has helped with our acute exposures. Our coughs subsided. The pain in our chests lessened. It works and we're grateful for that.But intermittent treatment under doctor supervision does not address the deeper, chronic exposures we face in the course of a career. We need longer-term, at-home glutathione treatment, but we can’t get it in California.Doctors can legally write a prescription for nebulized glutathione, but no pharmacist in the U.S. will compound it for California patients because, since 2020, the California BOP has unfairly regulated and disciplined pharmacists who do so.The last batch of nebulized glutathione ever dispensed in California was in June 2023, for a Firefighter Lung Detox Clinic in Sonoma County. Those firefighters have been without treatment ever since.The BOP's behavior is baffling and unjust and, as a result, patients – firefighters – are needlessly suffering.Glutathione is safe, legal, and allowable by the FDA – and it’s available in 49 other states. California is the outlier.
"The breathing treatment I had today has really helped out within the first half hour after I had it. I've seen a lot of firefighters affected by cancer... I've seen the suffering they go through. This will prevent a lot of suffering."
- Fire Capt. Eric Nakamaru, Member, United Firefighters of Los Angeles City, Local 112; first responder on the Palisades Fire
Verified Supporters : 231
Next Goal : 1000
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