Engineered stone is making California workers sick

Staff making artificial-stone slabs for the preferred kind of counter tops bought in the USA are creating a doubtlessly lethal, irreversible lung illness from tiny particles of poisonous mud, researchers from UC San Francisco and UCLA discovered within the largest U.S. examine of this rising well being disaster.

When the artificial quartz is lower, floor and polished, lung-damaging mud is launched into the air, resulting in a illness known as silicosis. The illness has plagued miners and cutters of pure stone for hundreds of years, however the engineered stone is much extra harmful attributable to its excessive focus of silica, a pure product in sandstone, and the dangerous polymer resins and dyes which can be added to the engineered product.

This rising occupational hazard has been sickening and claiming the lives of staff, predominantly younger Latino males, at an alarming charge for the reason that first U.S. silicosis case attributable to engineered stone was reported in 2015, based on the examine revealed within the July 24, 2023, version of JAMA Inside Drugs.

“Rising case counts of silicosis amongst stone fabricators during the last 10 years and accelerated development of illness transforms the paradigm of an all-but-previously-forgotten illness within the U.S.,” stated Jane Fazio, MD, a pulmonary specialist at Olive View-UCLA Medical Heart and co-author of the examine. “Our examine demonstrates extreme morbidity and mortality amongst a very weak group of younger underinsured and certain undocumented Latino immigrant staff.”

The human price of engineered quartz

The danger of silicosis from synthetic stone was first recognized in Israel in 2012. Because the first U.S. case of silicosis linked to engineered stone was recognized in Texas in 2015, California has change into an epicenter of the illness.

Researchers from UCSF and UCLA collaborated with the united states California Labor Laboratory and the California Division of Public Well being to determine 52 California engineered-stone staff identified with silicosis, 51 of whom have been Latino immigrants. Most have been identified between 2019 and 2022. Twenty of the sufferers had superior illness at analysis, and have 10 died. Their median age was 45 years outdated, with a median work historical past of 15 years.

Certainly one of them is Leobardo Segura-Meza, who was born in Mexico and immigrated to the U.S. in 2012. He discovered employment in Los Angeles as a stone employee 10 years in the past, chopping and grinding on the age of 17.

Regardless of taking well being precautions by carrying a masks and utilizing dust-reducing instruments, Segura-Meza went to the emergency room with shortness of breath in February 2022, and a lung biopsy revealed he had silicosis. The 27-year-old has been on an oxygen tank since then and may now not financially help his spouse and three younger kids.

Whereas Segura-Meza has been accepted for a lung transplant, he fears he’ll run out of time. Two fellow stone staff died whereas on the ready record. “Day by day I hope that the cellphone rings telling me to come back to the hospital to get my new lungs,” stated Segura-Meza, who was hospitalized final month with a collapsed lung.

Calling for change to cease killer stone

The examine’s authors known as for public well being officers, clinicians and policymakers to implement measures to raised defend staff from publicity to silica mud, extra shortly diagnose the illness and even ban the product.

“Our paper raises the alarm,” stated Sheiphali Gandhi, a UCSF pulmonologist and co-author of the examine. “If we do not cease it now, we will have tons of if not hundreds of extra circumstances. Even when we stopped it now, we will be seeing these circumstances for the subsequent decade as a result of it takes years to develop.”

No nation has but banned the product, however Australia has thought of it and is creating new rules to assist cut back the chance of silicosis via such necessities as higher air monitoring, coaching and reporting. In California, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is weighing a possible ban, and the state’s Division of Occupational Security and Well being, often known as Cal/OSHA, has begun drafting emergency guidelines.

The examine’s authors additionally known as for early analysis and minimizing additional publicity, each of that are difficult attributable to lack of well being care entry and the necessity for staff to help their households. Of the sufferers within the examine, 45% continued working after their analysis.