“A recent study by UCLA and UCSF physicians found that among dozens of California workers who got silicosis from grinding countertops, nearly a fifth had died. Their median age at death was 46.”
Engineered stone carries far more crystalline silica than most natural stone, and cutting it dry puts that dust straight into workers’ lungs. California regulators expect 485 to 848 of roughly 4,000 workers to get sick and as many as 161 to die, and the sick are largely young Latino immigrants. A 27-year-old father now cuts park trips short when his oxygen tank runs low, and two of his co-workers died waiting for lungs. The countertop boom got its kitchens. The men who cut them got a terminal diagnosis and a dust mask.