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California workplace safety regulators want to completely ban kitchen quartz countertops because they are linked to an incurable lung disease in the workers who make them.
The state’s Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board voted to move towards prohibiting work on artificial stone to stop infection by the deadly kitchen dust, followingAustralia’s banof work on the quartz material.
Workers who install quartz countertops often end up suffering fromsilicosis, which is caused by inhaling crystalline silicadust suffer from engineered stone.
The stone significantly more silica than natural materials like granite or marble, which is generated by cutting, polishing or grinding stones, especially high-silica engineered quartz.
Symptoms can include an irritating cough, mucus, shortness of breath, trouble breathing, fatigue, chest pain and leg swelling. While there are treatments to manage symptoms, there’s no cure for silicosis. The disease can worsen as it progresses, potentially leading to lung cancer, tuberculosis and even death.
California’s OSHA says the state is experiencing a silicosis crisis, with the number of cases surging from 52 in 2022 to 531 this year – a tenfold increase over three years.
That’s attributed to rising demand for the stone, analysts said.
A ban may be needed, regulators said, as the only viable option to increase the safety of workers, who they note are predominantly Latino and foreign-born.
“The evidence is now clear that engineered stone containing crystalline silica is too toxic to fabricate and install safely, and education and enforcement alone will not be sufficient to curtail the escalating occupational health emergency caused by this product,” said the Western Occupational and Environmental Medicine Association, a group of occupational physicians who are pushing for the ban.
Source: California Post – Breaking California News, Photos & Videos
