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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

#131

Post by AnthonyMouse »

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…

> 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 taxes, are higher.

The US healthcare system uses private insurance, implying that more use of the healthcare system raises everyone's premiums. And people without insurance then go to emergency rooms which are in turn still passing the cost onto private insurers. So voters already have the same incentive in order to avoid their premiums going up.

Re: Workers who cut countertops are dying of silicosis

#132

Post by mhb »

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…

We already have the government involved - OSHA. Why would having it more involved be better if its current involvement is not solving the problem? It's pretty to think that the government has some sort of self-interest and if it can save money in the long run by spending money in the short run, it will do that. But that's not how things work, is it?

A more plausible conclusion from observing the results of an entity's involvement in something is that if it is incompetent with the thing you gave it to do, don't give it more stuff to do.

Re: Workers who cut countertops are dying of silicosis

#133

Post by haldujai »

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…

Canadian data is relatively poor quality (mostly from the 90s) outside of Alberta (I expect QC and BC probably have the highest rates) but historically and estimates are that we have slightly higher incidence than the US.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/resp.14242

> There’s incentives for our government to protect workers from risks that will cost a fortune to fix.

There are many examples where this is inaccurate but let’s keep it simple and delve a little deeper into the silicosis problem presented in this specific study.

From the JAMA article:

Although a substantial number of the patients, including some of those who were uninsured or with restricted-scope Medi-Cal, likely had an undocumented immigration status, we did not directly collect information about whether individuals were undocumented immigrants.

Note that public health system in Canada is not “free”. Legal immigrants, documented workers, citizens and refugees have access to provincial or federal health insurance which pays for care.

Undocumented or illegal immigrants have neither (and also would not get WSIB which would be the payer for most silicosis cases) and actually have better coverage in California.

Additionally:

Ten patients (19%) were uninsured, 20 (38%) had restricted-scope Medi-Cal, 7 (13%) had Medi-Cal, 8 (15%) had private insurance, and 7 (13%) had workers’ compensation.

So 34/52 had some form of government provided or mandated insurance.

As an aside while restricted-scope Medi-Cal and uninsured rates are the surrogates for undocumented immigrants in this study, those over the age of 50 (or 19-25) are also eligible for full scope Medi-Cal but were not identified in this study. Medi-Cal will also be expanding in January 2024 to cover undocumented immigrants aged 26-49.

Even if we assume Canada’s silicosis incidence is lower, all of the above strongly suggests your public health system cost-savings incentive hypothesis is incorrect.

Re: Workers who cut countertops are dying of silicosis

#135

Post by bagels »

eropple wrote: post #41
bluGill wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever wore a respirator? Not a mask (which all already uncomfortable to wear all day), but the full respirator which is what is needed for this dust. I've done it for an hour when working with chemicals (different filter from dust, but otherwise the same) and I was glad to get it off.it is hard to blame someone for not wanting to wear them all day. They still should. If you need to wear a respirator all day i…

I have a wood shop, I wear a respirator constantly unless I've got the doors open and the fans on and I'm not going to be doing more than a one-off cut that afternoon. A properly fitted 3M 6800-series full-face respirator is pretty comfortable even for long periods and while wearing glasses. A 6200-series half-mask is even more comfortable, though a little awkward with glasses. The only problem is that a 6800-series…

I find the comfort highly depends on the ambient temperature. If it's above 80, it gets pretty sweaty in there.

Re: Workers who cut countertops are dying of silicosis

#136

Post by bastawhiz »

mhb wrote: post #132
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…

We already have the government involved - OSHA. Why would having it more involved be better if its current involvement is not solving the problem? It's pretty to think that the government has some sort of self-interest and if it can save money in the long run by spending money in the short run, it will do that. But that's not how things work, is it? A more plausible conclusion from observing the results of an entity'…

> if it is incompetent with the thing you gave it to do, don't give it more stuff to do.

When my code doesn't work, I don't sunset the code, I fix it. Why would the best course of action be to stop trying instead of fixing the root of the problem?

Re: Workers who cut countertops are dying of silicosis

#137

Post by LeifCarrotson »

nerdponx wrote: post #25
hackernewds wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vote with your wallet is the most effective method. Look at plastic straws today. What kind of countertops should be avoided? Would have been nice if the article suggested some solutions as well

I'd like to know as well. When my parents remodeled their kitchen they got some kind of simulated granite aggregate made of recycled material that I believe was fully heatproof and held up very well over the years. But did somebody get silicosis in the process?

They might have, you have no way of knowing whether the factory in which they were made used PPE or not. If they were cheap, probably not, if they were expensive, maybe, or maybe the manufacturer was just pocketing more profit.

Re: Workers who cut countertops are dying of silicosis

#138

Post by prepend »

spanktheuser wrote: post #111
DoreenMichele wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A quick search suggests there are 10.5 million in the US. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/04/13/key-facts...

A quick search suggests there are 335 million Americans but only 37 million Canadians. https://www.indexmundi.com/factbook/compare/canada.united-st...

So Canada has 1/10 the population of the US and 1/20 the population of undocumented immigrants.

So seems like Canada has many fewer immigrants of this type than the US.

Re: Workers who cut countertops are dying of silicosis

#139

Post by mitthrowaway2 »

rafaelmn wrote: post #60
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…

Not agreeing/disagreeing with this you but I wonder how you feel about obesity tax ? Low physical fitness tax ? There's plenty of evidence that exercise and diet significantly impact health (especially on population level) - like you said there's an incentive to keep those people healthy contributors instead of chronic burdens on the system. Sounds like a logical extension but doesn't seem popular/implemented widely.

Tax on sugar, sure. But having an obesity tax would be like having a silicosis tax.

Re: Workers who cut countertops are dying of silicosis

#140

Post by Arcanum-XIII »

victorbstan wrote: post #4

A lot of workers don’t wear protective gear. By choice. Nobody to blame but themselves.

I know a bit about the welding industry and and it’s a lack of education, macho attitude, bad habit “I know by smell/touch/sound that it’s going well” and of course management not making it mandatory. Working with respirator is not the fun part of the day, for sure. And mask/gloves slows you down. But well being able to breathe and see at the end the day without the worst sunburn of your live helps ;)
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