In the workshops of California's San Fernando Valley, where quartz countertops are cut and polished for American homes, a slow and invisible catastrophe has been unfolding. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine documents 592 workers — nearly all Latino men in the middle of their working lives — diagnosed with silicosis, an incurable lung disease caused by breathing engineered stone dust, with 31 dead and 65 requiring lung transplants. The disease is not a mystery, and neither is its cause; what the study reveals is the distance between knowing a harm exists and choosing to p
Study reveals 592 silicosis cases among California quartz workers; dozens died
592 workers diagnosed with incurable silicosis; 31 deaths and 65 lung transplants recorded, predominantly affecting Latino men with median diagnosis age of 46.