California regulators took a first step Thursday toward banning the fabrication of artificial-stone countertops, popular with consumers but implicated in a workplace epidemic of the lung disease silicosis.<\/p>\n
More than 600 health professionals signed a petition in December asking the California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board to prohibit fabrication of the countertops, which are made of crushed quartz, adhesives and pigments. California would be the first state to effectively ban the product.<\/p>\n
After a daylong meeting in downtown Los Angeles, the board voted unanimously to grant the petition and ask the state\u2019s Division of Occupational Safety and Health, known as Cal\/OSHA, to draft an emergency temporary standard to address the outbreak. The rule would be in place for a year while the agency considered permanent regulations. A committee composed of physicians, scientists, union officials and industry representatives would advise Cal\/OSHA.<\/p>\n
Quartz contains high amounts of silica, one of the most common minerals on earth. When slabs containing quartz are cut, ground or polished a toxic dust with the consistency of flour is released. That dust collects in workers\u2019 lungs and causes silicosis, an incurable illness that leads to early death.<\/p>\n
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Public Health Watch, LAist and Univision were the first to report<\/a> on what was then a cluster of about 30 silicosis cases in Southern California in December 2022. As of last week, the state had recorded 286 cases in Los Angeles County alone and another 120 in Orange County.<\/p>\n Statewide, there were 560 cases and 31 deaths. Fifty-eight workers had received double-lung transplants, which will prolong their lives by, at best, 10 years.<\/p>\n The vast majority of the afflicted workers are young or middle-aged, Latino immigrant men.<\/p>\n Thursday\u2019s meeting began with hours of in-person and online testimony from dying workers and their families, and sobering presentations by state officials. Amy Heinzerling, chief of the Emerging Workplace Hazards Unit of the California Department of Public Health, said the agency had identified 85 new cases of silicosis among fabricators in the first four months of this year. Enhanced regulation by Cal\/OSHA \u201chas not solved the problem,\u201d she said. \u201cIt is time to consider other approaches to this public health crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n Elizabeth Noth, an industrial hygienist with Cal\/OSHA, said the state has seen a doubling of silicosis cases among countertop fabricators every 13 months. If quick action isn\u2019t taken, she said, the tally of cases in California could reach 900 by the end of this year. Noth said pulverized silica dust contains ultrafine particles, known as nanoparticles, which circumvent all but the most sophisticated respirators. When they enter workers\u2019 lungs, they cause progressive scarring, known as fibrosis, for which there is no cure.<\/p>\n One sick worker urged the standards board in Spanish to \u201cdo something to stop this evil.\u201d Said another: \u201cWe want you to take this artificial stone away.\u201d A third said his illness had put an \u201cexpiration date\u201d on his life.<\/p>\n Representatives of countertop manufacturers, which have been named in hundreds of worker lawsuits, blame the silicosis epidemic on poor workplace hygiene and inadequate enforcement.<\/p>\n \u201cBanning a product to compensate for failed enforcement is irresponsible,\u201d said Matt Thurston, a regional director for Cosentino North America, a major manufacturer of artificial stone. Cosentino is headquartered in Spain, which has recorded some 2,500 cases of silicosis \u2013 more than any other nation.<\/p>\n Dr. Jane Fazio, a pulmonologist with UCLA Health who has treated more silicosis patients in California than any other physician, offered an emotional rebuttal to such arguments. Her patients, she said, suffer \u201cslow and then quick and then very painful deaths. This disease is really unlike any other.\u201d Silicosis, she said, \u201cshould not exist\u201d in 2026. \u201cPeriod. End of story.\u201d<\/p>\n Public Health Watch interviewed three ailing countertop workers in Southern California earlier this week. Each was dealing with the physical and emotional fallout from a double-lung transplant. Each insisted he\u2019d never been told about the dangers of fabricating artificial stone. Had he known, said Jeison, 44, of Anaheim, \u201cNot even if I was crazy would I have worked in this industry.\u201d (Public Health Watch agreed to use only Jeison\u2019s first name because he does not have legal immigration status.)<\/p>\n \u2018They lied to me and they lied to my employers\u2019<\/p>\n At a meeting in Santa Rosa last month, the standards board heard testimony from five former fabrication workers who said they wore masks and used water when they cut artificial stone slabs but weren\u2019t warned that the dust was much more hazardous than that given off by natural stone, like granite. Four of the workers appeared in a prerecorded video with their identities concealed because they did not have legal immigration status.<\/p>\n \u201cYou could feel how the dust entered our lungs,\u201d said a man from Orange County identified as Crispin. He said he wanted manufacturers \u201cto stop selling this material because there are still many workers who are not yet sick and don\u2019t know what is coming.\u201d<\/p>\n A fifth worker, Jose Francisco Andrade Pena of Alameda County, testified in person. He spent 33 years fabricating artificial stone in the Bay Area and was diagnosed with advanced silicosis in 2024.<\/p>\n Countertop manufacturers \u201cnever explained how dangerous [artificial stone] was,\u201d Andrade said in Spanish. \u201cThey lied to me and they lied to my employers. They continue to lie today … It is painful and frustrating to know that the government still allows this toxic product to be sold. Artificial stone should have been removed from the market long ago.\u201d<\/p>\n Andrade paused repeatedly during his testimony to cough or collect his breath. Before he was diagnosed with silicosis, he said, he was the person his family depended on.<\/p>\n \u201cI worked hard to provide for them and took pride in being strong. I could lift 60 pounds easily, work a full day and still have energy for my family. Today, that life feels very far away … Even small outings are difficult … I get tired very easily and have to plan my entire life around my breathing.\u201d<\/p>\n California tightened workplace regulations for silica in December 2024, and Cal\/OSHA stepped up enforcement of the countertop fabrication industry. As of mid-May, the agency said it had opened 181 inspections of fabrication shops, assessed about $1.9 million in penalties to shop owners and issued 26 stop-work orders for the dry-cutting of countertop slabs, a practice that creates thick clouds of white dust.<\/p>\n Still, there is only so much Cal\/OSHA can do.<\/p>\n As of January, the agency\u2019s inspector workforce had a vacancy rate of 35 percent. California only has one inspector for every 99,000 workers \u2013 compared to one for every 23,000 workers in Oregon. California has an estimated 1,342 countertop fabrication shops, many of which are small, mobile and hard to find. That may be an undercount, officials say.<\/p>\n Artificial-stone \u2013 also known as engineered-stone \u2013 countertops became popular with consumers over the past 15 to 20 years because of their durability, relative value and versatility (they come in a wide variety of colors). But there are safer alternatives. Slabs made of crushed, recycled glass release amorphous silica, which is far less toxic than crystalline silica, whose jagged, microscopic fragments are unleashed during fabrication of quartz. Granite and marble are safer, too; they contain some crystalline silica, but not nearly as much as quartz. Other countertop options include laminate, porcelain and concrete.<\/p>\n The standards board\u2019s vote Thursday to grant the petition seeking a fabrication ban was nearly derailed when the chairman, Joseph Alioto Jr., suggested that an advisory committee and a silica science subcommittee be convened before any emergency rule was considered. But the two other board members present \u2014 Derek Urwin and Nola Kennedy \u2014convinced Alioto that the state needed to act with urgency, given that a new silicosis case is diagnosed, on average, each day.<\/p>\n Urwin, an engineer with the Los Angeles County Fire Department, was especially persuasive. After the vote, James Nevin, a lawyer whose firm represents more than 750 countertop workers, called Urwin \u201ca hero who just saved 100,000 California fabrication workers\u2019 lives.\u201d<\/p>\n Federal ban unlikely<\/p>\n Should California impose a fabrication ban, it would join Australia in deciding that artificial stone can\u2019t be worked with safely, even when precautions are taken. Australia enacted a nationwide ban on the product in 2024 after recording an estimated 1,000 cases of silicosis among countertop fabricators.<\/p>\n