Doing Irreparable Harm: What your employer is not telling you about stone dust
We know that most of the people reading our articles are actively looking to improve their health, and this type of article might be “preaching to the choir”. However, we wanted to highlight a headline in People Magazine this week: Stone Countertop Exposure Linked to First Case of Incurable, Life-Threatening Lung Disease in Massachusetts.
First case? We seriously doubt it. This was only the first case confirmed by medical diagnosis. According to common medical knowledge, silicosis is the world's most prevalent occupational lung disease. (Silicosis) Between 1991 and 1995, more than 500,000 individuals in China alone were diagnosed with silica-related lung disease. (Silicosis) Back to the US: there are likely hundreds, if not thousands, of stoneworkers AND drywall finishers suffering from early silicosis in Massachusetts alone. They just don’t know that their cough is going to get progressively worse, and they’re too busy working and earning relatively low wages for jobs that expose them to life-threatening contaminants, every day.
Pride or (willful ignorance or just plain ignorance, whatever you want to call it) goes before a fall. In the case of people breathing in air contaminants day after day, year after year, there comes a time when the cough will not go away, and the inability to take a deep breath is constant. These are the beginning signs of silicosis.
Silica is the common name for silicon dioxide, SiO2. Silicon dioxide is a very common mineral which is found in plants (including dark, leafy greens, bell peppers and other vegetables), rocks (including quartz and granite), sand, soil and water. (Silicosis) You can eat and drink silicon dioxide with no ill effects. However, breathing in silicon dioxide particles is very bad. Ultrafine silicon dioxide particles are called "respirable crystalline silica" (RCS) and are less than 5 μm in diameter. They can go all the way down to the alveoli, the tiny air sacs in the lungs where gas exchange with the bloodstream takes place. Here, they are coated with mucus in the body’s attempt to isolate and remove them. The RCS stimulate the immune cells of the lungs (alveolar macrophages) to continually produce a lot of mucus, which degrades in about three days’ time, so that the body is continually producing mucus and carrying away the byproducts. It leads to a buildup of leftover protein products within the aveoli themselves. The body’s natural response to these particles is to try to clear them, but this is not possible, so the alveolar macrophages stimulate the body’s typical response to intruders, which is inflammation and eventually the formation of fibrous scar tissue, which reduces lung area available for gas exchange. Over the long-term, scarring can be seen on x-rays and confirms a silicosis diagnosis. (Silicosis)
Although silicosis used to be a disease of miners and sandstone workers, it’s evolved because artificial stone is a popular choice for countertops, and the crystalline silica component of artificial stone constitutes over 90% of the finished stone. (Silica-related diseases in the modern world) Other occupations prone to silicosis are:
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Auto-body finishers and anyone else who “sandblasts” on a regular basis
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Denim clothing manufacturing (who knew?) because the fabric is often “sandblasted” to achieve an “aged” or “worn” look
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Any type of concrete slab cutting operation (such as installing french drains in basements, cutting into slabs to renovate plumbing, adding etching to concrete slabs to simulate tilework, etc.), when it’s performed often as a contractor job
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Installation of concrete-based siding like Hardie board involves a lot of silica dust from cutting it.
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Installation of cement roofing tiles and even ceramic floor tiles can expose one to a lot of silica dust from cutting, as well as mixing of tile mortar.
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Cement mixing workers
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Brick masons (from mixing brick mortar)
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Potters and ceramicists can get silicosis from working with dry clay.
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Those who help with the construction of underground tunnels, such as subways and dams.
There are a number of protections that you can implement that take only a few minutes.
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Wearing a well-fitting KN95 or better respirator (not just a loose “dust mask”)
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When in open air, use a fan to blow dust away from you and stand “upstream” of the dust or cutting operation.
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When inside, use a vacuum with a HEPA filter fitted to the cutting tool.
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The use of water during cutting stone is very important, and not just to cool the blades of the tools. One study revealed that grinding or cutting artificial stone without water dust suppression produced nearly 300 times the recommended 30-minute time-weighted average exposure limit. (Silica-related diseases in the modern world)
Here’s our point: if you wait for legislation to use of masks, respirators or dust filter machines, it’s probably too late. There are three forms of silicosis: acute, accelerated, and chronic. Although chronic is the most common form, acute silicosis is caused by intense exposure over a short period. Here is the description from the National Park Service website of a major tragedy in West Virginia in the 1930’s: “Excavation of the Hawk’s Nest Tunnel lead to the greatest death toll ever from silicosis in the United States. Of the approximately 5,000 men that worked on the project, an estimated 2,900 worked inside the tunnel. Of these men, silicosis claimed the lives of at least 764 workers. A majority of the dead were African Americans. In the years after the project was completed, many more would die due to their exposure to silica dust while working in the tunnel…Workers labored in confined spaces with poor ventilation, a lack of dust control, and limited use of personal breathing protection. Within months, workers became sick from breathing silica dust.”
Don’t become a statistic because you think that wearing respiratory protection is “for wimps” or “takes too much time” or “is uncomfortable”. As one facebook user put it, “The thing to remember about silica is that our bodies have no way to process it. All of the silica that has made it to our lungs is still there. It doesn’t go away.” Another said, “You get two lungs; when you damage them too much, that’s it.” These are only a few voices (many think that they’re doing fine now, but we can’t follow up with them in 5-10 years). We tend to agree with caution; there’s a lot of medical innovations nowadays, but lung transplants are currently only at 50-56% for surviving to the five-year mark. It’s so much more effective and less painful to just wear the respirator mask/turn on the water/use the HEPA vacuum!
