Diane Cotter (The woman who uncovered the PFAS in firefighters' gear) - Episode 996

Behind The Shield

James Geering

Health & Fitness, Mental Health, Fitness

4.9 • 667 Ratings

🗓️ 23 October 2024

⏱️ 117 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Diane Cotter is a firefighter spouse and the woman who revealed the PFAS manufacturers were using in firefighter turnout gear. We discuss her early life, the Cold Storage Fire in Worcester, her husband's cancer diagnosis, her forever chemicals discovery, the resistance she encountered from trusted corporations and organizations, what needs to change and so much more.

Diane Cotter is a self-taught citizen activist whose upright, focused, and determined efforts in support of her husband, Fire Lieutenant Paul Cotter, during and after their battle against Paul’s occupational cancer served as the inspiration for the documentary “BURNED - Protecting The Protectors” by filmmaker Elijah Yetter Bowman and award-winning actor, Mark Ruffalo, Executive Producer.

Diane is the ultimate standard bearer, a smart, outspoken, and fearless woman who continues to march at the head of her six-year campaign to remove PFAS “forever chemicals” from the gear worn by today’s firefighters. No less an authority that Ed Kelly, General President of the IAFF, has properly called Diane Cotter “the firefighters’ hero.”

~ Michael Foley, Boston Fire Department (ret’d)

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode is sponsored by Transcend, a veteran-owned and operated performance optimization company
0:05.9	that I introduced recently as a sponsor on this show.
0:09.5	Well, since then, I have actually been using my products, and I have had incredible success.
0:14.5	There was initial blood work that was extremely detailed, and based on that, they offered supplementation.
0:20.6	So I began taking DHEA, BPC 157 for inflammation
0:25.3	based on the fact that I've been a stuntman, a martial artist and a firefighter in my whole life,
0:29.9	lots of aches and pains, dihexa to help cognition after multiple punches to the head and shift work
0:36.1	and peptides. Four months later they they did a detailed blood work again,
0:40.1	and I was actually able to taper off two of the peptides
0:43.2	because my body had responded so well to just one of them
0:46.3	that it was optimized at that point.
0:48.5	So I cannot speak highly enough of the immense range of supplementation
0:53.4	that they offer, whether it's male health,
0:55.6	female health, peptides to boost your own testosterone, which I would argue is needed by a lot of
1:00.7	the fire service, or whether it's exogenous testosterone needed, especially after TBI's or advanced
1:06.5	age. Now, as I mentioned before, the other side of this company is an altruistic arm called
1:11.9	the Transcend Foundation, which is putting veterans and first responders through some of their
1:17.2	protocols free of charge.
1:19.9	Now, Transcend are also offering you the audience 10% off their protocols, and you can find
1:25.2	that on Jamesgearing.com under the products tab. And if you want to hear
1:29.6	more about Transcend and their story, listen to episode 808 with the founder, Ernie Colling. Or go to
1:37.5	transcendcompany.com. Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast. As always, my name's James
	...

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