In Sun Valley, the sums of saws and Sanders, which are removed from the ranks of the stone factory shops. The young Latino men who work in these shops have unknowingly commissioned a deadly illness when they worked six days a week to make a living and support their families.
Due to the high concentration of manufacturing transactions, the northeastern San Fernando Valley is now California's epicenter of silicosis cases.
This irreversible lung disease is caused by inhalation of tiny particles of crystalline silicon dioxic, a mineral that occurs in certain stones, stones, sand and sound. Stone manufacturing workers who cut with high pebbles, grind and cut polishly constructed stone, the fine dust that fight the curls and breathing.
“These boys suffocate to death,” said James Nevin, a lawyer who heads the artificial stone dispute in Brayton Purcell.
Silicosis is the oldest professional lung disease, but the workers now met an acute accelerated silicosis with alarming rates. In the past, symptoms may have been developed for a lifetime, but the workers for stone production have severe silicosis today within a few years.
There is no effective treatment for silicosis, but once in an advanced stage, a lung transplant-a highly specialized, risky and expensive process of a person can extend a person by an average of six years.
“In just a few years, they do not need a lung transplant,” said Nevin. “Our youngest customer is 29 years old, 27 years old, when he needed his lung transplant. The average age of our customers is probably 35.”
The developed stone takes over the market
Starting at around 30 customers two years ago, the law firm represents 350 manufacturers and shopkeepers in cases against the manufacturers of Engineered Stone.
“The problem is not the business,” says Nevin. “The problem is the artificial stone itself.”
Engineered Stone was invented in Italy at the end of the 1970s and made for the first time in Italy, Israel and Spain, where cases of silicosis rose in the early 2000s. It was introduced to the United States at the end of the nineties, around the same time when Europe discovered the fatal properties of the stone. It quickly took over the market and became the nation's most popular worktop material by 2021.
“When I moved into the valley, it was nothing more than natural stone, marble and granite,” said Eric Reyes-Barriga, 36, who worked as a stone manufacturer in the northeast of Northeast Valley before he was diagnosed with silicosis two years ago.
“[Artificial stone] It became more popular because it was stronger to wear it and it was not damaged as quickly as marble or natural stone, ”he continued.
Reyes-Barriga remembered how beautiful the finished product would look. He often encouraged customers to switch to Engineered Stone in their home renovations without knowing what he sold. Even his own home is retrofitted with artificial stone slabs.
Although constructed stone can be cheaper, more customizable and durable, it contains a much higher silica concentration – over 93%silicon dioxide compared to granite (50%) and natural stone (2%).
“People switched from natural stone to synthetic stone without knowing the damage it caused,” said Reyes-Barriga. “The warehouses, the sellers or their dealers … they said nothing about the dangers.”
Manufacturers treated the stone as well as natural stone and used the masks and equipment that they had adequately protected for years. In 2019, the doctors in the Northeast Valley discovered increasing cases of acute silicosis.
Better PSA does not protect the workers
In experiments to contain silicosis epidemic, the legislators have worked to carry out more protective measures, while the California Department for Occupational Safety and Health (CAL/OSHA) forces updated regulations for manufacturing business, including wet cut, proper ventilation and wearing breathing masks.
Although appropriate practices in the workplace can lower the level of exposure, scientists and supervisory authorities are increasingly concerned that the safe use of technical stone may not be possible.
According to Nevin, his clients do not protect more regulations from silicosis.
“You can use equipment of 4 million US dollars and have all the desired licensing, and the workers will still receive illnesses due to the unique nature of the artificial stone,” he said.
In addition to the higher concentration of silicon dioxide, pulverize in artificial stone and compress the producers when building the panels and compresses silicon dioxide, which makes the particle dust much smaller than that of natural stone and again easier.
“It is not the dust you can see is the problem. It is the invisible dust that kills you,” said Nevin. “If I put my hands in a large circle around my head, the size of a pen would be a silica fragment made of natural stone.”
Neither an N95 mask nor a mask with respiratory masks protect these microscopic particles to enter the lungs of the workers, he claimed. Even wet cutting and ventilation devices, as Georgia Tech researchers found, did not bring a silicon dioxide values below the recommended exposure limit in manufacturing transactions.
“One of our customers got a lung transplant, but because he is the owner, he worked again with his new lungs,” said Nevin. “His business is a wet shop and he got silicosis [again] In the new lungs within a year. “
A vulnerable workforce
According to an assessment of 2023 Cal/Osha, the California stone manufacturing industry “almost exclusively consists of small shops with a median of five employees” and with a workforce that is “not represented and is almost exclusively foreign”.
Latino men, many of whom are immigrants or without papers, form the majority of stone manufacturing workers. In a 2023 case study with 52 workers with silicosis, everyone was except for a Latino men from Mexico and Central America.
“In the San Fernando Valley it was pretty much one of the best jobs – they are paid more [than other construction professions]“, Said Reyes-Barriga. But now that the workers are aware of the dangers, many feel stuck without the skills or resources of turning into professions in which they could earn the same amount.
In addition, most fabrication transactions, such as the One Reyes-Barriga, which once owned, are mom and pop stores that cannot afford the cost of expensive equipment, and the PSA that is necessary to meet the CAL/OSHA standards.
“You don't earn this type of money [needed] To get the Osha business, ”said Reyes-Barriga and added that the recommended masks alone cost $ 1,500.“ Imagine you have three people who work for you. Will you spend over $ 5,000 for masks?
Banning Engineered Stone
Outreach workers said that more business was informed two years ago with the information of the community about the dangers of silicosis by fulfilling wet cutting and using proper PSA -PSA standards and that the workers are more aware of the dangers connected to the material and are tested for silicosis.
However, many Outreach workers, scientists, doctors, civil servants and supervisory authorities come to the conclusion that the only real solution to prevent future deaths can be a complete ban on the constructed stone.
“The more I have learned, the more I take care of these patients, the more I can be sure that this material can be processed safely,” said Dr. Jane Fazio, lung and intensive doctor at Olive View Ucla Medical Center in Sylmar, who discovered silicosis epidemic in the valley.
In 2024, Australia was the first country to ban the sale and use of constructed stone in the new building.
Nevin is doubtful that similar legislation for the prohibition of the product in the United States will take place shortly. He hopes that complaints will “put up with the economic pain of these laboratory manufacturers and suppliers in order not to produce them”, just as the manufacturers have put pressure on asbestos voluntarily from most products, while the law on the ban on Asbestos was not passed in 2004.
In the first case, the technical stone manufacturers found a jury in the first case in LA, and recorded the 34-year-old Stone Fabricator Gustavo Reyes Gonzalez, who undertook a double-lying transplant last August, $ 52 million.
Some manufacturers have already introduced “Low Silica” focus on the Australian ban and the expensive complaints.
But Reyes-Barriga is skeptical about these products and in question which materials are used instead of crystalline silicon dioxide and what effects could be 10 years later.
“For us as a manufacturer or owner of shops, it is better to remove the material from the market and continue working with natural stone,” said Reyes-Barriga.
Next week: Part 3 – how the silicosis affects the wider community.