Firefighters Turn to Unproven Glutathione Treatment Despite Safety Concerns

David Marquez stood outside the Rose Bowl stadium in the days after the Eaton Fire had been contained, his body still raw from the work. The Los Angeles wildfire had become the second most destructive in California's history—nineteen people dead, nine thousand buildings reduced to ash. Marquez, a captain with the Pasadena Fire Department and a twenty-five-year veteran, had helped bring it under control. Now he was about to try something his department had never offered before: he inhaled glutathione, an antioxidant compound, from a volunteer clinician on the roadside.

His team was falling apart. Sleep would not come. Chronic cough, headache, fatigue—the symptoms that follow intense smoke exposure had settled into their bodies like an occupational tax. "We were so desperate because of how messed up we were," Marquez said later. "We were willing to pretty much try anything." Within hours of the treatment, he felt relief. The worst exposure of his career seemed to lift. He felt, he said, much better immediately.

What Marquez experienced—and what thousands of firefighters across the country are now seeking out—sits in a peculiar space between hope and uncertainty. Glutathione is a real substance, naturally produced inside the human body. It is an antioxidant, and the logic is intuitive: wildfire smoke contains carcinogens and toxic metals; an antioxidant might help the body expel them. Clinicians and fire departments have gathered anecdotal reports suggesting it works. But no large-scale scientific study has tested whether it actually does. No rigorous trial has measured its safety. No peer-reviewed research has confirmed its efficacy. And yet it is being offered at some of the largest wildfires in recent years—most recently in Spokane, Washington—with fire chiefs sometimes directing crews toward volunteer treatment tents during morning briefings.

The stakes are real. Firefighters die from cancer at a rate fourteen percent higher than the general American population, according to the US National Institute for Occupational Health and Safety. The occupational exposure is relentless and cumulative. As awareness of these risks has grown, so has the appetite for solutions, even unproven ones. In 2017, a group of naturopaths formed the Integrated Health Action Network in Santa Rosa, California, to provide assistance to crews fighting the Tubbs Fire. The organization, which includes licensed naturopaths but not medical doctors, now deploys volunteer clinicians to major wildfires across the country, offering glutathione alongside acupuncture and massage therapy.

But in August, the International Association of Fire Fighters—which represents over 360,000 firefighters across the US and Canada—issued a rare public warning. The union noted two recent recalls of glutathione due to contaminants found at compounding pharmacies. It flagged the absence of research on safety and long-term effects. And it raised a concern that cuts to the heart of the matter: the union has spoken to multiple members who reported feeling worse after treatment, only to be told by clinicians that this was simply the body expelling metals. "We don't know if glutathione is effective," said Sean DeCrane, the union's assistant to the general president for health and safety. "We don't know if it's a placebo effect. We don't know the long-term effect of this type of treatment."

Jen Riegle, a co-founder of the Integrated Health Action Network and a licensed naturopath, acknowledges the gap in evidence. She says the organization's data—collected from firefighters who received treatment—shows clinically meaningful improvements in headaches, fatigue, and brain fog. But she is careful about what she claims. "It shouldn't ever be misconstrued as clinical trial data, or double-blind, placebo-controlled, peer-reviewed data," she said. "It is just meant as a starting point to be able to garner support for future studies." The organization has offered to work with researchers to conduct proper trials.

Marquez, for his part, is unmoved by the distinction between anecdotal evidence and scientific proof. He testified in uniform before California's state legislature last year when the Board of Pharmacy proposed rules that would have restricted glutathione production. The proposal was abandoned after firefighters spoke out. Now all fire stations in Pasadena offer the treatment. When asked whether his improvement might be placebo effect, Marquez was blunt: he did not care. His team felt better. He felt better. That was enough to make him seek out more treatments. The question of whether glutathione actually works—or whether it merely feels like it does—remains unanswered, even as more firefighters line up for it.