California Issues Emergency Rule To Address Silicosis Epidemic

A year after Public Health Watch, LAist and Univision revealed a cluster of the deadly lung disease silicosis among fabricators of artificial-stone countertops in the Los Angeles area, workplace regulators in California on Thursday approved an emergency rule meant to help quell the epidemic.

After hearing public testimony, the California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board voted unanimously to adopt the emergency temporary standard, which will require employers of fabrication workers — mostly young, Latino men — to suppress toxic silica dust with water and take other protective measures.

The ultra-fine dust becomes airborne and enters workers’ lungs when the countertop slabs are cut or ground. The all-too-common results: lung scarring that continues even after exposure ends, and slow suffocation.

Among those who testified in support of the rule was Dr. Robert Harrison, chief of occupational health surveillance for the California Department of Public Health, who said the number of silicosis cases statewide had reached 100. As recently as July, the count was 77.

“This is not like anything I’ve seen in my 40-year career in occupational medicine,” said Harrison, a physician on the faculty at the University of California, San Francisco.

The emergency temporary standard, which will likely be replaced by a permanent one, allows California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health, known as Cal/OSHA, to immediately shut down a fabrication shop, without conducting air sampling, if an inspector observes the “dry-cutting” of silica-laden countertop slabs. Among other things, it will also require:

• The use of respiratory protection for any “high-exposure” task.
  
• Exposure monitoring at least every 12 months
  
• Training and written warnings in English and Spanish
  

According to Cal/OSHA, about 4,040 workers are employed in the state’s 808 fabrication shops. The agency estimates that “between 500 and 850 cases of silicosis will occur among these workers, and between 90 and 160 will likely die of silicosis.”

Cal/OSHA also estimates that 72% of the shops are out of compliance with the sWOtate’s current silica standard, which was developed with traditional industries like mining, quarrying and sandblasting in mind, and includes loopholes that allow employers in artificial-stone fabrication to sidestep worker protections.

‘They’re terrified’

Also testifying in support of the rule was Dr. Jane Fazio, a pulmonary physician at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center in the San Fernando Valley who treats silicosis patients.

“In just the last six months, I've witnessed a 20-something year-old suffer through a lung transplant,” Fazio said, “an amount of suffering that many would deem unthinkable and I wouldn't want to go through myself. I have numerous other patients in their 30s on the lung transplant list, waiting and waiting for one of those precious organs to become available and become a match for them. But they don't come available that often.” 

Fazio added, “A lot of them will probably die waiting. And they're terrified.”

Raphael Metzger, a lawyer in Long Beach, represents about 30 of the Southern California silicosis victims and their families in lawsuits against artificial-stone manufacturers. In an interview with LAist on Thursday, Metzger said that while the new silica regulations in principle are a “good thing,” they remain “inadequate because the artificial-stone products cannot be safely used.”

Artificial stone banned in Australia

This week, the Australian government enacted a ban on such products, effective next July, making it the first nation to do so. “I think that’s what needs to be done here,” Metzger said. Los Angeles County is considering what would be the first ban in the United States.

“My fear is that just making more regulations, which [Cal/] OSHA doesn't have the manpower to enforce anyway, is not going to solve this problem at all,” Metzger said.

Artificial stone, also known as engineered stone, contains upwards of 93% silica. Natural stone, which tends to be more expensive and harder to fabricate, contains far less. The silica content of marble is negligible, for example, and the silica content of granite ranges from 10% to 45%. The respirable silica particles that do such damage to the lungs are about 100 times smaller than a grain of ordinary sand.

Cal/OSHA estimates that the emergency temporary standard will cost California businesses $66 million over the next 10 years. But the agency says that “benefits over the same period are estimated at $603 million, not including indirect costs associated with lost wages and benefits, lost lifetime productivity, and pain and suffering.”

Jim Morris is editor-in-chief of Public Health Watch, a nonprofit investigative news organization.