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Workers who cut countertops are dying of silicosis

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Re: Workers who cut countertops are dying of silicosis

#121

Post by bagels »

icegreentea2 wrote: post #36
thadk wrote: post #8

According to this podcast, Cass Sunstein, co-author of Nudge, used his economist-oriented federal government department to delay and block legislated regulation related to protection for silicosis during the Obama administration. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/if-books-could-kill/id...

I was interested, but also didn't want to scrub through a podcast. Summary: Cass Sunstein was the administer of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. The OIRA is given the remit to review drafted rules (ie regulations) that various federal agencies want to enact. The OIRA is supposed to perform an external cost-benefit analysis of the proposed regulations. OIRA is suppose to turn around ruling…

Thank you for collecting this. A couple years to draft & study some proposed regulation doesn't seem that heinous to me. It would make sense to not hastily publish a regulation that will last decades without really considering it and its effects well. They can be a source of lawsuits, and I would assume, you want it to be effective which can take some study.

Re: Workers who cut countertops are dying of silicosis

#122

Post by bagels »

dmbche wrote: post #2

"Nearly half of the workers suffering silicosis in the UCLA and UCSF study said their workplaces were using water to control dust. Roughly a quarter said they always had respiratory protection. Fazio said studies have found that in many shops, dust is so thick in the air that respirators cannot filter out a sufficient amount. Metzger argued that the kind of sophisticated and costly measures that would be needed to re…

I wish it was more specific about the materials.

Re: Workers who cut countertops are dying of silicosis

#123

Post by steve_adams_86 »

lazide wrote: post #113
mabbo wrote: post #39

What I find interesting when comparing the US the Canada on topics like these is that in Canada, there is self-interest in demanding workers be protected. Like beyond the fact that it's a good thing you do. Because we have a public health care system, funded by taxes, having a large number of young men out of the work force (not paying taxes) and using the health care system effectively means my taxes, everyone's tax…

How do you explain the massive push to ban/stop Smoking? The US is pretty much the only country to successfully reduce it, near as I can tell (perhaps Canada has had success too?).

Canada worked to discourage and regulate smoking more aggressively around 20-30 years ago, and in 20 years we’ve gone from around 1 in 4 people smoking to more like 1 in 10. It steadily trends down.

https://uwaterloo.ca/tobacco-use-canada/adult-tobacco-use/sm...

Re: Workers who cut countertops are dying of silicosis

#124

Post by theGnuMe »

Aeolun wrote: post #108
Kirby64 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems that the synthetic stone is not the cause, but highlighting the problem: poor enforcement of safety standards and inadequate PPE provided to workers. Just because there's more silica doesn't mean that it's suddenly unsafe whereas cutting granite is safe. Even drywall or cutting concrete you're supposed to wear PPE.

> Even drywall or cutting concrete you're supposed to wear PPE Yeah, but it doesn’t kill you within a few years if you don’t, right?

It is dose related although the silica never gets out of the lungs.

Demolition, sanding drywall compound all is bad without PPE and Hepa filters.

Re: Workers who cut countertops are dying of silicosis

#125

Post by ceejayoz »

Aeolun wrote: post #105
ChumpGPT wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What I find interesting when comparing the US the Canada on topics like these is that in Canada, there is self-interest in demanding workers be protected. Like beyond the fact that it's a good thing you do. Is there any evidence of this? That the Canadian Gov cares more about workers than the US Gov? >Because we have a public health care system, funded by taxes, having a large number of young men out of the work for…

I don’t think cutting in the open air and cutting in tiny sweatshops are at all comparable.

Exposure won’t be anywhere near zero outdoors unless there’s a serious breeze. Over decades that’ll add up.

Re: Workers who cut countertops are dying of silicosis

#126

Post by mitthrowaway2 »

lazide wrote: post #113
mabbo wrote: post #39

What I find interesting when comparing the US the Canada on topics like these is that in Canada, there is self-interest in demanding workers be protected. Like beyond the fact that it's a good thing you do. Because we have a public health care system, funded by taxes, having a large number of young men out of the work force (not paying taxes) and using the health care system effectively means my taxes, everyone's tax…

How do you explain the massive push to ban/stop Smoking? The US is pretty much the only country to successfully reduce it, near as I can tell (perhaps Canada has had success too?).

I'm curious about how you got that impression. In Canada, smoking is down from 26% in 2001[1] to 15% in 2019[2]. (Cannabis consumption is probably trending upward though). I have no reason to believe that this decline is particular to the US and Canada. Japan has been trending down from 33% in 2000 to 20% in 2020[3]. I expect this will have accelerated since the government made a strong anti-smoking push during the Tokyo Olympics. In fact, this seems to be a trend across the entire developed world, see this chart[4] showing that cigarette sales per adult per day peaked by the 1980s in every developed country surveyed, and all have been trending downward for decades. The US shows up as exceptional mainly in how extremely high its cigarette consumption habits were in the '60s and '70s.

[1] https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/82-624-x/2012001/article...

[2] https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/82-625-x/2020001/article...

[3] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/JPN/japan/smoking-rate...

[4] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/sales-of-cigarettes-per-a...

Re: Workers who cut countertops are dying of silicosis

#127

Post by bagels »

mrob wrote: post #91
pixl97 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>dust is so thick in the air that respirators cannot filter out a sufficient amount This is not a technology problem, this is an 1880s "Safety devices are too expensive problem" along with paid under the table workers problem. All kinds of other industries manufacture 'dangerous' products with regulations that protect the workers. Housing and agriculture are both industries that do not and fight ever further for anti…

Specifically, the problem can be solved with a supplied-air respirator: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supplied-air_respirator

Exhaust fans, supplied air respirator, water spray, using a waterjet instead of dust producing processes, enclosing the cutting blade in a vaccum.

The bulk of the dust hanging in the air could be removed with adequate ventilation fans, which seems pretty basic.

Re: Workers who cut countertops are dying of silicosis

#128

Post by was_a_dev »

lazide wrote: post #113
mabbo wrote: post #39

What I find interesting when comparing the US the Canada on topics like these is that in Canada, there is self-interest in demanding workers be protected. Like beyond the fact that it's a good thing you do. Because we have a public health care system, funded by taxes, having a large number of young men out of the work force (not paying taxes) and using the health care system effectively means my taxes, everyone's tax…

How do you explain the massive push to ban/stop Smoking? The US is pretty much the only country to successfully reduce it, near as I can tell (perhaps Canada has had success too?).

The majority of Western countries have implemented and successfully reduced smoking rates.

Re: Workers who cut countertops are dying of silicosis

#129

Post by bagels »

b112 wrote: post #9
dmbche wrote: post #2

"Nearly half of the workers suffering silicosis in the UCLA and UCSF study said their workplaces were using water to control dust. Roughly a quarter said they always had respiratory protection. Fazio said studies have found that in many shops, dust is so thick in the air that respirators cannot filter out a sufficient amount. Metzger argued that the kind of sophisticated and costly measures that would be needed to re…

Apparently sandblasted jeans are another issue: https://academic.oup.com/occmed/article/63/5/317/1451439

Any sandblasting process causes this. Other media might not cause silicosis, but may introduce other kinds of particles in to the air.

Re: Workers who cut countertops are dying of silicosis

#130

Post by thehappypm »

jader201 wrote: post #117
trobertson wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fortunately it was a granite countertop and not quartz. Granites are primarily composed of feldspar and quartz, which are both primarily composed of silica. Silica is the thing that causes silicosis, and when that granite was cut it was clouds of silica dust that covered your home. You were no more safe in that granite dust than you would have been in quartz dust.

Do you have a source? Everything I’m reading [1] says that granite contains 10-45% silica, compared to quartz containing 90%+. [1] https://www.osha.gov/sites/default/files/publications/OSHA37...

Those are pretty much equivalent health-wise. The poison cloud is half as dense, but still a poison cloud.
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