California stonecutters face silicosis epidemic from engineered quartz countertops

Hundreds of California stonecutters have contracted silicosis, a progressive and incurable lung disease, from occupational exposure to crystalline silica dust during quartz countertop fabrication.

In the workshops where stone becomes surface, a generation of California craftspeople is paying with their lungs for the countertops that line American kitchens. Silicosis — a scarring of the lungs caused by crystalline silica dust — has claimed hundreds of quartz fabricators since 2019, most of them young, all of them incurably ill. The disease is not a mystery, and it is not inevitable; it is the predictable consequence of an industry that has weighed worker safety against market convenience and, for too long, chosen convenience. The question now before regulators, manufacturers, and consume

California stonecutters face silicosis epidemic from engineered quartz countertops

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