Silicosis is a lethal workplace illness that killed thousands each year up through the 1960s. In recent decades, thanks to union workplace safety fights, it became much rarer. Annual deaths dropped to the hundreds. The disease affected mostly older workers with longer exposures.So it was hard for stonecutter Gustavo Reyes Gonzalez, thirty-five, to get a clear diagnosis in 2019 when he first developed a cough and shortness of breath. It wasn’t until two years later that he was told he had silicosis — and only had a year to live.Reyes Gonzalez had worked for fifteen years in a fabrication shop cutting and shaping the manufactured stone now commonly used for countertops and showers (also known as quartz or engineered stone).Around the time Reyes Gonzalez started working as a stonecutter, the material was becoming popular in the United States as a cheaper, more durable replacement for natural stone (marble or granite). But manufactured stone, which is made of crushed quartz and resin, contains much more silica — it comprises up to 95 percent of the material, compared to 5 percent for marble or 10 to 50 percent for granite. This makes manufactured stone much more hazardous for workers to cut, grind, and polish. These processes release silica particles that can embed themselves in the lungs, causing scarring and ultimately lung failure.As many as two million workers may risk exposure, from manufactured stone as well as from mining, quarrying, sandblasting, and another new hazard, “frac sand” used in hydraulic fracturing in the oil and gas industry.No Protection Is EnoughOnly now, after many workers have spent decades working with manufactured stone, is the horrible truth coming out — no amount of protection is safe. There is no treatment for silicosis other than a lung transplant, and even transplants may only prolong life by five to ten years. Many workers are getting sick in their 20s or 30s.For Workers’ Memorial Day (April 28) in the United…
